


Saints & Sinners  ((ORIGINAL WORK))

by gracewritingthings



Category: Original Work
Genre: Afterlife, Angst, Angst and Humor, Death, Humor, Original Fiction, Original work - Freeform, running out of tags
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-05-11
Updated: 2019-05-12
Packaged: 2020-02-29 18:36:39
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 24,113
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18783856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/gracewritingthings/pseuds/gracewritingthings
Summary: "Are you serious? I DIED and I have to fill out paperwork for it?""I know, I know," Trinity says, walking her over to the chairs. "Look, just think of it as hospital forms, except you don't have to worry about insurance! Or a DNR."Ayana stares."Yeah," Trinity says regretfully. "That joke's always a risk."---Humans are selfish, confused, impulsive and annoying on a good day. And as an angel, specifically as a guide, it's Trinity's job to deal with them on their worst.All she wants is to do her job, keep her head down, and deliver people from their life on Earth to their afterlife with no complications. But when she gets assigned to Ayana Santiago, a nineteen-year-old girl with an unjust sentence to eternal damnation and an attitude problem as bad as Trinity's own, those plans are thrown off course, and both of them are about to get wrapped up in something much bigger than they could have imagined.And today was supposed to be Trinity's day off, ok?//UPDATES EVERY FRIDAY??





	1. HOW IT STARTS: TRINITY

**Author's Note:**

> (This has no fandom bec it's just my original story.)

Heaven has never been something for humans to understand. Even they know that. They think about what they hope heaven will be, or if they believe in it, or whether they'll get in, like it's a cool new club and the bouncer is only letting you in if you're sexy enough or if you have a fifty dollar bill to bribe him with.

The sexiness and cash, Trinity thinks, must equal piety and general holiness in this analogy.

The thing about being one of the youngest angels around is that you get a lot of respect for being so fresh and ambitious and hardworking, but it's the kind of respect that means a lot of being patted on the head and talked to about the old days, and not a lot of actually being taken seriously.

It's what Trinity imagines being a human teenager would feel like. Lots of _How's school going?_ and _Appreciate your father while you have him, you can learn a lot from him._ Less glory, more nodding politely and following orders. Orders to do lots of grunt work that nobody else wants to do.

Grunt work is important, though. In the end, someone needs to do it.

That's what Trinity tells herself as she sits down at her desk, careful not to lean her weight too hard on the side of the chair that's broken, and opens another folder of mind-numbingly detailed files on the life of some newly dead human. The folder contains info on everything from cause of death to greatest fear to favorite brand of soda to bra size. And she has to read all of it. _It's what helps you understand and connect with your charge,_ her boss's voice says in her head. It's a condescending voice that makes Trinity feel like hitting something.

Instead, she looks through the file. Sitting at her slightly slanted desk they keep saying they'll come fix, which happens to be in the corner near the drip in the ceiling they keep saying they'll come fix, she looks into her next assignment. Name, Ayana Santiago. Age, 19.

Oh, jeez. The young ones are the worst. They take the most "guiding", the most explaining, the most energy. They're the ones who are in shock. Of course they are; They were invincible. Death is the last thing they were expecting. One second they're worried about their girlfriend or their job interview or their three-year-old, and the next they're walking through a blinding white light. 

Maybe she died of a terminal illness, Trinity thinks hopefully. They at least have this sad and calm grief about them, because they saw it coming. It's usually much less work for her. She flips through a few pages and--

For God's sake. Cause of death, car crash. Traumatic injuries. Died on impact. This girl probably won't even know she's dead when Trinity gets to her.

Already thinking of all the paperwork she's going to have to fill out for Ayana, she keeps skimming through the folder. Officially, she's not "skimming," she's "carefully reading and absorbing every word." But that would take days, and patience that Trinity doesn't have.

Her first couple hundred trips, she read every detail down to the letter, committed them to memory just like she was told. It's what got her her reputation. Among her superiors she's known as a dutiful and responsible young worker; among the other Guides she's known as an annoying overachiever. The teacher's pet of the afterlife.

Eventually, though, she stopped reading word for word like that, because the more trips she made, the more she began to see that things like a person's first word, their total lifetime number of parking tickets, their mother's middle name, or that time they were 15 and drank too much lime-a-rita and threw up on their friend's couch, has no effect on how well Trinity is able to understand them and guide them into another place. If anyone else knew that she skipped past these parts, and some of the other red tape-y things she got through unofficial methods, she would probably lose that _diligent-kid-who's-going-places_ thing she has going for her, but look. What they don't know won't hurt them.

Besides, she's not giving up that power. Being known to slack off is what gets you stuck here, making trips back and forth between lives, fetching and "guiding" and doing endless paperwork, for eternity. There are other guides that Trinity works with who've been doing this since literal biblical times. That won't be her. Whatever she does, she won't let that happen to her.

Ayana's photos are nothing unusual, lots of posed school pictures and unposed ones with friends and family. This girl is pretty. Big dark eyes, curly black hair, wide smile full of gleaming teeth. She looks excited in some of the photos, happy to be with her friends, happy to be alive. The other thing about being one of the youngest, Trinity thinks miserably, is that they keep giving you the hardest cases, because they think that it's easier to connect with someone if you're both fresh and full of hopes and dreams. Which makes no sense. Obviously. Trinity's not full of anything but cynicism and shaky self preservation.

She suspects it's really because nobody wants to deal with dead teenagers, and the youngest angels are the ones who have the least power to say no.

Sighing, Trinity stands up from her sad desk, shutting the folder with a final resentful slam. She walks past all the other desks, through the winding hallways and out into the lobby, which is infinitely nicer than the back rooms, with shiny marble floors and gold statues of angels with unrealistic body/wing proportions and approximately 10,000 % less drips in the ceiling.

At the elevator, she presses Down and waits. 1, 2, 5, 12... Floor 99. The doors light up and slide open. Trinity cracks her knuckles and neck as she steps in.

It's showtime.


	2. AYANA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ///
> 
> "Are you an angel?" Ayana asks.
> 
> "Uh-huh, thanks for noticing," it says. "Now if you'd just focus, we could--"
> 
> "Oh my God! Who's that?" Ayana says in shock. She realizes that behind her there's a lifeless body, lying on the metal tray she'd been lying on.
> 
> "That's--" the angel girl begins, sounding exasperated-- "You know what. This is going to take longer than I thought."
> 
> ///

\---

**  
****  
****  
**

The first thing Ayana thinks is that her head is pounding. Kind of like she'd had a migraine all week, then woken up really hungover, then got hit by a truck. The other thing is that she can't tell if it's cold or hot. It's definitely _something,_ because there are goosebumps on her skin. But it’s not cold. It's hot, so hot that she's getting chills. The weirdest and most unsettling kind of hot.

She groans and tries to sit up. She fails. She tries again, and fails harder. She doesn't try a third time.

 _"Ayana,"_ a voice says. _"Ayana Santiago."_

She would jump if she weren't paralyzed. The voice is deep, echoing, and cold, like a cave filled with empty blackness and icicles like teeth.

All she can do is blink into the blurry darkness through her heavy eyelids. She can't move her hands, her fingers; she feels the muscles straining but she can't move an inch.

 _"Ayana," the voice repeats._ There's a hint of impatience this time. 

"What?" she snaps, except her mouth doesn't move. She hears her own voice as waves around her.

"You need to get up," the voice says.

"I can't move."

"Yes, you can. It'll take a minute. It always does."

"No, it's like I'm paralyzed."

"You just don't know how to exist in your new form yet. Relax. Let yourself get used to it. And then move your hands. Then your arms. Then pull yourself up. Then, stand."

Ayana tries to relax, but relaxing isn't really your first instinct when you're conscious but unable to move. Don't panic, don't panic. What's relaxing? Meditation!

She takes a deep breath in, and out. In, out. In, out. Think about the air going through your chest, your lungs, into your blood and through your limbs... 

Goddammit, that therapist lady didn't know what the hell she was talking about. This has never helped anyone, and it's not gonna help her. She can't move, and she's never gonna be able to move again and she'll be trapped like this for---

Oh. Her right arm breaks out of the frozenness. Then her shoulder. 

Slowly thawing, her body becomes hers again. Her arms are weak and sore, but when she tells them to pull her up, they do it.

"God, my head hurts," she complains. "Did I drink 5 bottles of tequila and not remember? Well, duh, I guess I _wouldn't_ remember, would I--" 

"Enough," the voice interrupts. "You're not drunk. You're dead."

Ayana pauses. 

"What?"

"Dead. You've passed. I'm here to lead you to another life, to guide you into an existence beyond anything your mortal self ever could have comprehended-- Hey, are you listening?"

"Uh..." What Ayana has actually been doing is trying to see the shape in front of her, a shadowy figure blending into the dark corner. "I can't see you." 

"You don't need to _see_ me," the voice says impatiently. That seems to be its thing. "You just need to listen. Anyway, vision starts to be restored soon after muscle function, so don't worry about it. Look, do you understand what I was saying before? You've just died--" 

"My grandma died when I was a kid," Ayana says dreamily. "She was so mean... but I loved her anyway. She smelled like lavender water and incense and rage."

"Well. That... sucks,” the icy voice says, “But right now we're focusing on you. You are _dead._ You are not alive anymore. Your mortal body is gone."

The dark shape is starting to become clearer. Ayana can almost make out a face-- Nope, there it goes again.

"Where did it go?" She asks, barely keeping together the strings of the conversation in her head. What had she just asked?

"Look behind you," says the voice. Ayana does. Just like that, color and detail appear in her eyes, corners and creases and shadows pouring into her vision. There, lying where she had just been trapped, is her body, motionless. It looks cold, skin drained of color, lips cracked and gray. 

"Who is that?" She asks. She can feel the answer in her head, slipping out of her grasp as she tries to hold onto it.

"You. That's _you._ " 

Ayana turns back and finally sees where the voice has been coming from. The shape talking to her comes into focus; it looks like a girl, except for the huge feathered wings that arch over its head and beams of bright white light pouring from its eyes.

"Are you an angel?" Ayana asks.

"Uh-huh, thanks for noticing," it says. "Now if you’d just focus, we could--"

"Oh my God! Who’s that?" Ayana says in shock. She realizes that behind her there's a lifeless body, lying on the metal tray she'd been lying on.

"That's--" the angel girl begins, sounding exasperated-- "You know what. This is going to take longer than I thought."

Ayana looks at the angel more closely. Her skin is dark, her head shaved. Her eyes are still glowing, but somehow Ayana gets the feeling that behind all that light she’s rolling them. She still stands at the edge of the room. 

Speaking of the room, it's dim and small. There are rows and rows of large drawers covering the wall. The one behind her is open. Wait. Drawers. The metal tray. The body--

" _Wait._ Are we in a _morgue?!_ "

Suddenly, the angel unfolds her arms and steps out into the center of the room. As she moves closer, she seems to get taller. The last bits of darkness fall away and her eyes glow much brighter. 

She's on fire. Electric blue flames lick up the girl's arms, her wings, her neck. Blue light and shadows dance across her face, making her look beautiful and terrifying. 

_Ayana Santiago._ The angel's mouth doesn't move. _You are no longer as you were on Earth. You now exist among the Dead, and I am here to lead you by the righteous fire of Heaven into the afterlife. Now. Stand. Up._

Watching the fire spread and jump, Ayana's mind begins to clear. Suddenly, she understands. The angel's voice in her head lifts the fog that had settled, waking her up from whatever dazed state she had been in. And that means--

"Dead?" she's said the word out loud a thousand times, but thinking of herself actually being it makes the word seem strange and fake. "How?"

"You were in a car accident," the angel replies, this time in her normal echoey voice and not her fiery telepathic one. "Do you remember being in the car?"

"Yeah," she says, "It was... I was going to a party. My friend wanted to go out. Her cousin drove us-- I don't remember crashing."

"You were probably knocked out as soon as it happened. But the guy driving had had eleven shots of Amsterdam an hour earlier. He wrapped the car around a lamppost."

"So I'm... dead." Ayana says slowly, trying out the word again. "I know what this is. It's temporary, right? Like on Grey's Anatomy when she died but kept ignoring it and was in that weird in-between place and had to decide that she really wanted to live before they could save her?"

"I don't know what any of that means," the angel says flatly. "But your death is not temporary."

"This doesn't make any sense. I didn't even wanna go out tonight! I told my friend-- wait, is she okay? My friend? Ashley? What happened to her?"

"Well, this wasn't a joint assignment, so she's not dead. But then, I don't know about the state she's in, injuries, comas, anything could--"

She stops when she sees Ayana's face. "I mean, I'm sure she's… uh, fine."

"I can't just be dead," Ayana says. Panic starts to creep into her voice. "I have work tomorrow. I have to go get the jeans I bought on eBay from the post office?"

"Relax," the angel says in a tone that's probably supposed to be soothing, "You're going to have to forget about your mortal life now. You're beginning a new one."

"But I have rent due in a week." Ayana says weakly.

"There is no ‘in a week’. Time doesn’t move in the same way in the afterlife."

"Afterlife. Like heaven?"

"That's the idea. I mean, for most people."

"No," Ayana mutters, jumping up. And with that, her body isn't just functional, but bursting with energy. She feels like jumping off the walls, crawling out of her skin. "I can't _be_ dead. Okay? Please just wake me up. I wanna wake up _now--_ "

"You can't wake up. This isn't a dream."

"Oh my God, just shut _up!_ I know what a fucking dream feels like. This isn't real and I wanna get out. I had things-- I have things to do! Okay? Just let me out of here so I can go do them!"

Panic and adrenaline shoot through her. She shakes her head and hits herself hard in the face, trying to wake up. She's been here too long-- It's like a bottomless pit, and the further she falls the harder it'll be to get back out.

"Shh," comes the voice from behind her. "I know it seems impossible. Just take deep breaths, and try to get used to it. This is how it is now."

"No," her own voice sounds unrecognizable, hysterical. "No, no, it's not. Please."

She's shaking, on the ground leaning against the wall and holding onto it like there's an earthquake. The pounding in her head is back-- She doesn't know how to wake up. There's nothing she can do but wait, and shake, and cry. 

None of this is fair. She didn't ask for this. She didn't even get a warning-- She's just _here._

Ayana doesn't know how long she sits there sobbing into the wall. Time passes quietly and leaves her alone. She feels a hand on her shoulder-- When she looks up, there's the angel girl, eyes still glowing, the light softer and dimmer now.

"Get up," the angel says gently. "We have to go."

"Where?" Ayana asks numbly as she stands up. She feels nothing. She's hollowed out and tired. There's tightness around her eyes where the tears dried on her skin.

"To your judgment." The angel holds out her hand and Ayana takes it, not knowing what that meant.

Like ghosts, they walk out of the cold metal room.


	3. TRINITY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ///
> 
> "Are you serious? I DIED and I have to fill out paperwork for it?"
> 
> "I know, I know," Trinity says, walking her over to the chairs. "Look, just think of it as hospital forms, except you don't have to worry about insurance! Or a DNR."
> 
> Ayana stares.
> 
> "Yeah," Trinity says regretfully. "That joke's always a risk."
> 
> ///

\---

 

Honestly, that wasn't as bad as Trinity thought. Was it painful? Yes. Frustrating? Sure. But that's how it always is. And she only had to use the Heavenly Fire once, and barely even for a minute. That's better than a lot of pickups go.

The girl is looking like the usual: blank, tired out from the crying, and currently in the second layer of shock that comes right after absorbing what's happened.

Technically, the dead shouldn't cry. It happens all the time, but it shouldn't. Things like tension under the eyes releasing tears, shouldn't happen to someone who's a soul without a body. That's something Trinity's bosses wave away, saying something about the Lord's mysterious wonders that even angels aren't meant to understand. But she sees through it; they're upset they don't know. And embarrassed by it. She knows this because it's how she feels too.

Things like that, things that can't be but are, make them all very curious and very irritable. _"That's the Spirit for you,"_ is the party line, but it itches under the surface of every other angel's skin; dissatisfaction with that answer, resentment toward it. For beings dedicated to God and spirits and all that, angels are weirdly evidence based. And they _hate_ not knowing.

But they can't show it, so they hide behind their scripted lines and tight smiles and holy fire. Trinity does it too. Because at the end of the day, not knowing is better than falling.

Ayana is still looking dazed when they get on the elevator. "Hold on..." she says blearily.

"What?"

"Death's supposed to come when you die. Not angels. Like, a skeleton in robes."

"Yeah, that's a myth. Who knows where the hell that came from. It's angels who come for you. Unless you're going right to Hell with no judgment, and then one of the fallen will pick you up."

"Fallen? Like fallen angels?"

"Yep. See, look at you, getting out of that shock already! Told you it just took some time."

"Did you tell me that?"

"Well, maybe I forgot. But I thought it. I thought it several times."

Ayana looks around and seems to notice for the first time where they are. "Um. Isn't there a white light to go through or something?"

"Huh, we're just blowing through all the cliches today."

"So there's not?"

"Well," Trinity admits, "There is. But you won't remember it. It happened when you died. And your death was so fast, it wasn't walking into the light so much as being thrown into it unconscious. So."

"Great." Ayana looks like she's about to throw up. (Which eternal souls _definitely_ shouldn't be able to do, and fortunately, actually don't.)

"What did you mean, my _judgment?_ "

"To get from life on Earth to eternal life, you must be judged. Your soul can go to Heaven, to Hell, or to Purgatory."

"I never believed in that stuff," Ayana mutters. "I did a little, but not really."

For a second, her face is blank, but it clears up like a cloud passing over the moon and leaves her looking terrified again. "What if I go to hell?"

"Oh, you won't," Trinity says brightly, happy to finally have a question with an easy answer. "Very few people do. And they don't get picked up by me. The fallen do that, like I said. The fact I was sent for you means you're either going to Heaven, or at worst, Purgatory. That sucks, but it's very very rare. Don't even worry about that."

Ayana looks a little unsettled, but still relieved. She's one of the ones who bounces back fast. That's the only thing, Trinity thinks to herself, that makes nineteen year olds a little easier. Adaptability. (It's still not worth it, in her opinion, not that anyone ever asks for that.)

When the doors open at Floor 99, they step out onto the sparkling marble floors.

" _This_ is where I'm gonna be 'judged?'"

"No. This is where you'll be signed in."

Trinity leads them out of the lobby, through the winding halls and into reception. At the desk sits a very cheerful man with a blinding smile and a bowtie that's an irritatingly bright shade of orange. His eyes start to glow when he sees Ayana, like they always do when humans are around.

"Darius," Trinity greets him warily, "New soul. Ayana Santiago. 19, car crash, no history."

"Trinity! Great to see you!" Darius stands up, unnecessarily, rising to his full height of 6 foot 11, known in official measurement units as really freaking tall. His wings almost knock his chair over as he stands. "How've you been?!" He gives them his most beaming megawatt smile, all teeth.

Trinity's grimaces and covers her eyes. "Put those away, it's too early."

He doesn't.

"Look," she says tiredly, "this better not take as long as last time, alright? I don't have eons to waste right now."

Darius turns to the girl. "Welcome to Floor 99!" he says, with so much enthusiasm Trinity thinks she might be sick. "I'm Darius, receptionist for the Holy Spirit. Just kidding. Sort of. I'm actually the receptionist for the Hall of Judgment, but I like to think that indirectly, my work is linked to--"

"Darius," Trinity warns.

"You've gotta forgive her," he tells Ayana, "She's very serious. Well, she's right that we need to get you started. Here, let me just--" He disappears behind the desk for a second and pops back up with a pen and a clipboard attached to a frighteningly tall pile of forms.

"And here we go. Take a seat and fill these out for me, and then we can get you in there real quick. Good thing it's slow today, or this one might strangle me," he says, glancing over and winking. "And strangling is _not_ model guide behavior, is it, Trinity?"

Trinity looks disapprovingly at Darius one last time before turning to Ayana, who's looking at the forms in disbelief.

"Are you serious? I _died_ and I have to fill out paperwork for it?"

"I know, I know," Trinity says, walking her over to the chairs. "Just get started while I run to my office for a second. It'll be over before you know it, and look, just think of it as hospital forms, except you don't have to worry about insurance! Or a DNR."

Ayana stares.

"Yeah," Trinity says regretfully. "That joke's always a risk."

She leaves Ayana to the forms and goes back through the halls into her "office"-- also known as her corner of the communal room usually swarming with other guides glaring at forms and sleeping at their desks.

Strangely, today it's empty. Slow day, Darius had said. Weird, since Friday nights are usually terribly busy; Lots of young humans going out to drink too much and dance inappropriately in clubs. Alcohol and traffic, bad combination. I.e., the girl down the hallway currently writing down her dates of birth and death for records that are already in the system. Whatever. At least it's not Trinity who has to fill them out.

One minute break, she thinks, leaning against her desk and staring at the ceiling. The minute passes by too quickly. She replaces the bucket under the drip in the ceiling, reaches into the filing cabinet on her left, and pulls out the processing sheet for judgment of newly dead souls, cleverly titled PROCESSING SHEET FOR THE JUDGMENT OF NEWLY DEAD SOULS.

Carefully, she writes the name, the dates, the cause of death. She stamps the top right corner and signs off at the bottom in her tight, neurotic script. _Trinity._ Guide Signature Here. Same as always. She picks up the sheet, not touching the corner with the fresh ink from the stamp, and goes back to reception.

Ayana is right where she left her, still staring down at the clipboard, chewing on the pen. Which, ew. But people have had far worse reactions to the sign in forms. That hole in the wall near Darius's desk, clumsily hidden behind a fake potted plant, was one of them.

Sitting down next to Ayana, Trinity glances over her shoulder. She's gotten as far as her first name.

"That's a start," Trinity says encouragingly. "Now, Santiago. S-- A--"

"I know how to spell my name," Ayana snaps.

"Right, of course you do. It's just--" Trinity says delicately, "--you're, uh-- not."

Ayana rolls her eyes. "Fine. What do I say for cause of death? Car crash?"

"Yep."

"Social security number?! Why the hell would they need that here?"

"They just like to make you jump through hoops," Darius chimes in unhelpfully from across the room.

"This is so stupid," Ayana complains. "And what do I put for this-- time of death? How would I know?"

"9:57 P.M.," Trinity answers easily. That part of the file she did read.

Ayana keeps going through the questions, admittedly painfully slowly and not without questioning the logic of each one.

When it's done, Ayana hands over the clipboard angrily. Trinity walks over to Darius' desk and staples the stamped PROCESSING SHEET FOR THE JUDGMENT OF NEWLY DEAD SOULS neatly on top of Ayana's hastily scribbled forms.

"Great!" Darius beams, standing and opening the door behind him. "Thanks so much for cooperating, and have an amazing judgment!"

"--Um, thanks," Ayana says, staring doubtfully past his shoulder. Trinity doesn't blame her. It's pretty sketchy. First because the door needs a new coat of paint, and also because past the doorway is nothing but pitch black darkness.

"After you," Trinity says.

"Chivalrous," Ayana hesitates in the doorway. "Wait."

"What is it?"

"What's your name again? Whatever that guy called you-- Trinity?"

"Yes," Trinity says through her teeth, "But you're really not supposed to know that," She glares pointedly at Darius, who's whistling something upbeat and jaunty while he reviews documents.

"Trinity, what if they say I'm bad? I don't want to go to Hell." She suddenly looks very young and tragic, and vulnerable, which is something Trinity hadn't seen her show on the surface until now.

"I read your file," Trinity says gently. "You've done nothing that would get you anywhere near Hell. That's a place only real evil goes: serial killers, rapists, genocidal dictators. People who leave their used towels on the floor. Kidding. Bad joke. Shouldn't have said that so close to the genocide thing. Anyway, what's the worst you've done? Ignored your mom's phone calls? Skipped your little sister's birthday to get high with your high school boyfriend?"

"That was one time-- Never mind. What if it's not anything I did... just that I'm a bad person on the inside."

"Judgment is based on your actions," Trinity says. "Trust me."

Technically, she doesn't _know_ what God has in mind when handing out eternal salvation, but she knows she's never seen anyone sent to Hell who hasn't done seriously terrible things. She's guided people who've had homicidal fantasies during their life on earth but never acted on them, and those types have consistently been let into Heaven. Every human is a sinner, but not everyone cares. Most of them do. So she tells Ayana confidently that she'll be fine.

Again, Trinity takes her hand as they walk through the black doorway.

\---


	4. AYANA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ///
> 
>    
> “When you are judged,” Trinity says suddenly, “You'll be in water. It’s going to be really, really cold.”
> 
> “Fun.”  
>  
> 
> ///

\---

 

The darkness is warm and waxy around her. Ayana stumbles down the first step without knowing it's there.

"Careful."

"Thanks," Ayana says irritably.

She can't see in front of her feet until next to her, Trinity turns her eyes down onto the floor. It's a spiral staircase. The stairs are narrow and steep, and she can only see two or three steps in front of her in the dim light.

"What, is the magic elevator out of order?"

"It doesn't go where we're going. Besides, Darius likes opening the door like that."

Five minutes later, they're still walking down the stairs.

"Not to complain too much--"

"You? Never."

Ayana ignores this. "--But are we almost there yet?"

"This is a path that cannot be measured in human concepts of time or distance. . ." Trinity pauses for effect. "But about three more minutes."

Ayana hears a sound from below them and far in the distance that sounds like slow, heavy rain. _Drop. Drop._

Soon the ground becomes flat and solid again. As Ayana walks she feels it cave under her feet. She bends down to touch the ground, and feels soft moist soil in her hands. The air is fresh and warm.

"Are we outside?" Still she can barely see.

_Drop._

"Kind of. But not really. We're in the place of judgment. It's not an outside or inside thing. It's like its own world. Look around. Can't you feel that it's different?"

"You know what's different? Death. I guess in all the _different_ that's been going on I can't tell. Hey, maybe I would see it if I could actually see anything. Can't you make those a little brighter?" Ayana asks, pointing to Trinity's eyes.

"No," Trinity says, a little defensively. "Your eyes will get used it soon."

Actually, Ayana is starting to see a little better. Her shoulder brushes against something wet, and then her arm-- They're leaves. Suddenly she sees that they're surrounded by trees and leaves the size of her head, dark and glossy with light reflecting off the small streams of water that gather in the middle and fall down in heavy drops. That's what the water dropping sound was. They're in a rainforest. Of course. Because what could be weirder?

Over her head she hears the sounds of animals, frogs croaking and crickets chirping. It's getting so loud she can't believe that back on the stairs she heard only dead silence.

"I was imagining more like a church. Or something with clouds," Ayana admits.

"This is where Adam and Eve were made. Where humanity started. Where the first sins were committed. Now, it's where they are judged for them."

Ayana hasn't read anything from the Bible since she was ten. She remembers thinking that Heaven for her would be walking on clouds made of marshmallows and riding horses with long hair for her to braid. And she remembers that Eve got blamed for telling Adam to eat the fruit with her, even though Ayana knew Adam was really the stupid one because Eve got convinced by Satan, the master of evil and temptation, and all it took to convince Adam was just another human.

But those were just stories. Not history. Not real.

Ayana only prays when things are really bad or really impossible or when a customer is really rude at work and it would be _really_ funny if they tripped. Trinity said that most people go to Heaven, but Ayana's heard what sins are. She smokes, she drinks, she uses God's name in vain, she curses at her mom sometimes when they fight. She hasn't been to church since she was a kid.

There's the other thing she's been trying not to think about. Her mom. Her sisters. Ashley. The other people who are apparently on Earth right now while she's dead. She doesn't want to think about them at her funeral, seeing her body. And what's her obituary gonna say anyway? _19 year old girl killed in car accident. She is survived by her goldfish and her roommate Katrina, who's mostly just mad she has to post a new Craigslist ad now._

Oh no. Who's going to feed that fish? God knows Katrina's not gonna do it. Ayana realizes pathetically late how naive it is to think Katrina isn't going to flush Bubbles down the toilet.

Ayana's still not completely convinced she's not gonna wake up from all of this. Everything is weird and offices turn into jungles. Thinking about her own death is so big and surreal, she can't really take it in. But if it is real...

She'll just do what she's best at and ignore it.

Avoiding your own thoughts gets easier and easier the further into a random tropical rainforest you get. Now moonlight glows on their path and stars are scattered like glitter in the black sky.

"When you are judged," Trinity says suddenly, "You'll be in water. It's going to be really, really cold."

"Fun."

"After, someone else will bring you where you're going."

"Not you?"

"My job is to guide you from death to judgment. What happens after that is another department. I'm like your cab driver, and the next angel you're passed to is the one giving tours of your vacation town."

"Those people always have terrifying smiles on their faces like they're about to eat you." Ayana points out.

"Yes."

They walk quietly after that. Drops fall onto Ayana's skin and into her hair. They make her remember in the summer when she was a kid and she'd walk home after playing in the park all day just as the heavy dark clouds rolled in, and a few drops of rain turned into a downpour, washing the grime off her skin and beating on the concrete.

She remembers mourning for her childhood like everyone does, looking back and seeing nothing but carefree innocence, longing for a time that deep down, she knew had its own darkness she was choosing to forget. She wonders if when she finally processes it, that's what it'll be like being dead. Remembering coconut ice cream carts and stories late at night but not the monsters, arguing, and powerlessness.

Remembering being with people and being alive, but not the loneliness and sadness, the dollar pizza and Kraft mac n' cheese that loses its taste after eating it three times a day for five weeks because this month just joined the last two months in the Rent That Hasn't Been Paid Yet Club.

Already, she's homesick, for her mattress with no bed frame, for having a heartbeat, for the stupid mac n' cheese. She even misses her mom. Oh look, there's that idealizing she was wondering about.

She's broken out of her thoughts when Trinity's arm reaches out to stop her.

"We're here," Trinity says, eyes glowing a little brighter.

In front of them is a river. It's wide and rushing, dark and loud. Over their heads, the moon and the stars are now gone, leaving the sky blank and inky black.

Trinity sees her looking. "They get in the way," she says quietly. "Now, there is nothing in the sky to see you but God."

Silently, Trinity brings her right up to the edge of the river, where Ayana can feel that the air is cooler around her feet.

"Go ahead. This is as far as I can go. Start in the shallow part. Keep walking until you get to the middle. Then, all you have to do is wait."

"How deep is it?" Ayana asks, looking at the river distrustfully.

"Bottomless," Trinity says easily, "But that won't matter. You'll feel as if there's ground under your feet. Now, go on."

Ayana hesitantly steps one foot into the river.

And then jumps back out, shrieking in a very dignified way.

"It's freezing!" she yells.

"I told you."

Taking a deep breath, Ayana puts her foot back into the shallow water. It's like ice water, but scarier, like the feeling you get when your tongue sticks to ice and the cold might rip your skin off. But she takes another step forward.

It's not the kind of cold you get used to as you get further in. By the time she's knee deep, she already feels the heat leached from her entire body.

"I'm really hating this," she calls over her shoulder, "Could we go to a warmer river? Do you guys have like a hot tub we could do this in?"

When there's no response, she looks back. But Trinity's gone. There's nobody there, as if Ayana had just walked up to this frozen river by herself in the middle of the night and decided to go for a swim.

"Hello?" she calls.

There's no answer. She looks all around her, but it's too dark to see very far. She's alone.

Feeling a little betrayed, and five times more creeped out by her surroundings now that she's on her own, she turns and keeps walking into the center of the river. It gets deep fast. She's at her waist now. The water rushes around her, the noise so loud it drowns out the sound of her own teeth knocking together.

"Cold, cold, cold," she mutters as she keeps going. As the water climbs up her torso, she feels the breath knocked out of her lungs. It's like all the air is being sucked out of her chest with a straw.

When she looks back at the bank, it's much further away than she thought. She's almost in the middle now. She walks the last few steps and looks back again, and again she's crossed much more distance than she should've with those few steps.

She's up to her shoulders, gasping for breath, moving her arms in the water uselessly. The numbness in her legs and feet is starting to spread to her sides. It's really fucking cold.

"Hello?" she yells out, but it's more like a sad breathless rasp. Her teeth chatter as she tries to get her words out. "I did it! I'm in the goddamn river, okay? Now what?"

After a second, she adds on guiltily, "Sorry about saying goddamn."

Suddenly, she feels the ground slipping from under her feet, like sand on the beach when the wave comes in. There's nothing to stand on. She braces herself and gets ready to swim, but instead, she floats. Not awkwardly like you do when your older sister's trying to teach you to swim and tells you to float so you stay there with your feet sinking down to the floor and holding your breath in case your head suddenly goes under.

She floats easily, like something's holding her up, but there's nothing. It's just her, alone in a bottomless negative-five-hundred-degree body of water.

_Look, the salt in the seawater makes it easier, it lifts you up kind of. If you're ever in the middle of the ocean, you can just float til you get to land._

_Why would I ever be in the middle of the ocean?_

_I don't know, Ayana, jeez, just if you ever are._

_Whatever. I don't want my face to go under while I'm breathing in._

_But if you hold your breath the whole time, when you finally have to breathe out it'll move your chest too much and make you go under. You have to breathe normally, and take the chance you might choke for a second, or you'll sink yourself before the water can do it._

Woah. Where did that come from? Kim's voice and her own sounded inside her head like a movie.

_Come on, kid. It's time to go._

_No, I don't wanna go yet! Can I have five more minutes please?_

_I already gave you five more minutes. You know what, I'm leaving with or without you. Stay as long as you want, but I don't know how you think you're getting home by yourself._

After that, one memory breaks off into another without stopping, like a chain.

She sees faces from her life, some that she didn't even remember. They play out like videos inside her eyelids. Are her eyes closed? She can't tell, but she hears her sisters' voices, Ashley's, her aunts and uncles. In flashes, she sees her entire life.

She watches her father, who she hasn't seen in fifteen years, lift her up and throw her into the pool. She feels the sting of the scrapes she used to get all over her arms and legs from tree bark, and the hurt swelling in her throat when she got yelled at and sent away. She smells the perfume her mom always wears, hears her family fighting in the other room, hears herself fighting with them too--

Oh, those jeans are really cute. She should wear those more.

There's the time she fought that other girl in high school for talking about her, and there's Ayana losing, and there's Ayana getting it together at the last second and leaving the girl on the ground. She feels the pain stinging and bruises forming where she'd been hit, even as she watches herself walk away, not wanting to look back to see if the other girl's bleeding.

She sees herself a few years ago, walking through the hallways in school like a ghost, and then just going to Ashley's most days instead because she couldn't imagine getting through another six hours in that place, and then just not going at all, quietly falling apart and disappearing. She sees the string of boyfriends who either loved her too much or not enough, and the sad apartment where her and Katrina have been taking turns sleeping on the couch, and the graveyard 7-eleven shifts that made her feel particularly like snapping and killing someone, just strangling the next poor fourteen year old kid to come in high out of their mind looking for the BBQ-flavored Pringles.

Memories that have disappeared long ago come flooding back, like they were in hiding, and it's too much. She forgot them for a reason; there's not enough space in her head. She sees her own baptism, a tiny baby in a white dress surrounded by bickering but loving family members and a slightly harassed looking priest.

She starts to feel her skull overcrowded by her own life, and her lungs still in shock from the cold, which now has her entire body numb. Only deep in her chest, where her hearts beats, is it warm. There, she feels everything: pain, love, anger, regret. Fear. Loneliness.

The emotions are pure and clean, even the bad ones. This is what it would've been like, she thinks, to feel things as they were while she was alive. Not pushed down, not ignored, not muddled. It's terrifying. She wants it to be over, but the flashes of her life just keep coming. There's another cousin, another injury, another story.

Exhausted, she stops fighting it. She gives herself over to the dead heaviness in her limbs and the scenes racing through her head, and lets go.

 

\---


	5. TRINITY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> ///
> 
> Maybe, Trinity thinks desperately, if she rambles long enough and dumbly enough then Gina won't notice the girl behind her, currently shifting her weight loudly and dripping water onto the linoleum.
> 
> “Trinity. What is that?” Gina interrupts disapprovingly, staring over her shoulder.
> 
> Nope, there goes that plan.
> 
> ///

\---

 

Trinity sees when it starts to slow down. From her quiet place in the trees, she watches Ayana's body start to shake and shiver, be released from its hold.

It's all very dramatic when it happens. Trinity gives it that at least; Judgment's not one of those all bark and no bite things. There's flashing lights, heavy winds, all of it. The other angels love it. They gather around to watch, sometimes. It makes them feel better, Trinity guesses, to witness this great awe-inspiring thing. It's the closest they ever get to hearing directly from God, the thing they've dedicated their lives and legacies to. It makes them feel connected. 

Secretly, Trinity wonders if that's not the reason for all those showy lights and winds. It's a dangerous thought to have. It’s not a pep rally. These decisions are not made with anything but God’s will, divine justice, and definitely not to appease the angels like some kind of dictator throwing propaganda at a restless army. Just letting that thought run through her head is sacrilegious, she knows. Thankfully, angels can’t read minds.

She watches the other angels all around her start to fall away like shadows, creeping from their places in the vines, on their way back to their work. The show is over now, lights gone and air calm again, everything back to normal.

Only Trinity stays, stupidly, like she always does. Just to make sure, she tells herself. Just to be sure.

_Ayana._

The voice is not solid, like a human's or even an angel's. It's deep and sweet and sad, and seems to be made up of the air. It comes from everywhere, and from inside of yourself. It always makes Trinity want to cry. Which she doesn't. Obviously.

_You have been judged by the Holy Spirit,_ the voice says. _Your life on Earth weighed by the divine powers._

Ok, Trinity thinks as she watches Ayana try to stand, blinking and shivering like she's just been woken up. So far so good. Now all that's left is the “Your soul is worthy,” and it's over. Another job perfectly done--

_And your soul has been found lacking._

Wait. 

What?

Trinity freezes. She feels the other angels stop cold where they had been retreating. 

_By the most ancient and omniscient powers in the universe, you are sentenced to spend eternity in the red fires of Hell._

Still standing in the middle of the river, Ayana's face twists from something like shock into horror.

Oh no, Trinity thinks. No, no, no. This can't be happening. It never has. It doesn't make any sense.

The voice disappears, leaving everyone where they are, a young girl soaking wet and a group of slack-jawed angels scattered like the stars missing from the sky. They all stand there stupid, not knowing what to do or say. 

Trinity moves first.

“Ayana!” she calls across the water. “Get out of the river! Come on, hurry up!”

She tries to keep the panic out of her voice, she really does, but this is a new situation for her, ok?

When Ayana finally stumbles out of the water, shaking violently, Trinity rushes to hold her up. Wrapping her jacket around Ayana, quietly mourning for the leather, Trinity looks around them frantically.

“It said Hell,” Ayana says wildly, “Did you hear? It said to literally go to hell!”

“Yeah, I heard that part,” Trinity says anxiously. 

“You said I'd be fine!” Ayana says accusingly.

“Well you should've been, alright?!”

“So what now?” Ayana asks.

Trinity has no idea what happens now. She's never been around for this part. She’s always disappeared as soon as her charges were okayed, let into the celestial city or whatever. There must be someone coming for Ayana, but where? Are they on their way now?

Trinity takes a deep breath and thinks. Her job is over. Protocol is, she should've left long ago. Wherever this girl goes, however she gets there, is not Trinity’s responsibility. What _is_ her responsibility is to go back to her office, replace the bucket under the drip again, finish her reports, and move on to the next case.

She looks over at Ayana's terrified face. 

Trinity has never been to the land of the damned, has never felt hellfire. But she's been taught what it means since the moment she came into existence. Hell is torment, suffering, and it never ends. It's where humans go when they're cruel and evil, so hopelessly screwed up that even God loving them can't save their souls.

And she read up on this girl's life in detail. She’s a sad kid whose worst crimes include breaking up with guys over text and smoking too much weed. Ayana shouldn't be going there. It's a mistake. God doesn't make mistakes, yada yada, but Trinity knows that this is one.

She thinks of all the charges she's had, all the time spent memorizing files and doing perfect reports and being polite to her bosses and making sure she did everything right. 

She’s done everything right. Then again, so has Ayana. Sort of.

All the stress, all the effort, for what? Hundreds of years of perfect work just to throw it away for some random case that should be none of her concern?

She sighs deeply, hating herself even as the words come out of her mouth. 

“Now,” she tells Ayana with more confidence than she feels, “You come with me.”

 

\--

 

The boss's office is slightly bigger than the ones the guides get, yet somehow even more depressing, because _this_ is the next step, where your ambition and blood and sweat and tears take you. Crammed between the break room and the janitor’s closet, in a tiny lopsided space that looks like it's holding its breath. It could be seen as bare bones and minimalist, maybe, but it mostly just reads as sad. The only real upside is that, unlike Trinity's current workspace, it has actual walls. You know, dream big and all that.

Ayana stands next to her, looking soggy and downtrodden.

Looking over her shoulder the whole time, half expecting a team of security guards with pitchforks or something to stop them, Trinity had rushed them both out of the shadowy leafiness of the Garden, up the seemingly never ending stairs, and back through Reception. She'd then marched them through the halls, ignoring the stares from her coworkers as if returning from the Hall of Judgment with a catatonic human trailing in her wake was an everyday thing.

Now, standing in front of her manager's office, Trinity reviews the events leading up to her making what may be the biggest mistake of her life. 

She took a human through the process, the human was judged unworthy of salvation, which is highly unusual, and was sentenced to Hell, which is unheard of for a soul delivered by an angel. Trinity then took the human back up the way they came, something that has never been done before, because she believed the omniscient and all powerful Lord they all serve had screwed up.

Well. There's really no good way to explain that without sounding like an insubordinate maniac, so she might as well just get this over with. 

She knocks politely.

“Yes?” a muffled voice calls out.

“It's Trinity.”

“You may enter.”

She opens the door delicately (like everything in this place, it's old and precarious, and one time Darius had walked in so zealously the door had fallen off its hinges.) Inside sits a bored, irritable woman whose face is in a constant state of discomfort.

“Hello, ma'am.”

“What do you need?” Gina says without looking up, sounding annoyed.

“Well, I just got finished with this case, I mean, I _would have been_ finished with it, but something really strange happened, and I wasn’t sure what to do since nothing like this has ever happened before, so I thought if I came to you--”

Maybe, Trinity thinks desperately, if she rambles long enough and dumbly enough then Gina won't notice the girl behind her, currently shifting her weight loudly and dripping water onto the linoleum.

“Trinity. What is that?” Gina interrupts disapprovingly, staring over her shoulder.

Nope, there goes that plan.

“--They sentenced her to Hell.” Trinity says dejectedly.

Gina's face does something complicated, going from uncomprehending to shocked to controlled.

“Well,” Gina decides on, “If that's the Lord’s decision then that's the Lord's decision, and there's nothing else to say about it. I don't see why you would take this girl back up here.”

“I know, but doesn't it just seem-- really strange?” Trinity asks, cringing as she speaks.

“That is not your call to make. You know that. This girl needs to be taken back right away, before the order of things is upset any further.”

“Humans picked up by us _never_ go to Hell. Ever. Anything that she did to deserve that would have been in her file,” Trinity says in a rush, knowing she's digging herself in deeper with every word.

“Are you telling me that? Did I miss the day you got a promotion and now have things to explain to me?” Gina asks angrily. Trinity has a feeling it's a rhetorical question.

“No, ma'am, I didn't mean it like that. I'm really sorry.”

“I never would've expected this from you, Trinity. You've always done your work so well,” Gina says, but she looks appeased. “Now take this girl where she belongs right this second, and we'll talk about the consequences of your actions when you get back.”

This is her out, Trinity thinks, she could just leave it at this. Take Ayana back, get some dirty looks and extra paperwork for a while but in general, stay on the nice, steady path she’s carved out for herself. She doesn't have to throw everything away. She can stay safe, comfortable. Treated like a child, sure, but on her way to something better. It would make perfect sense. It would be so easy.

So of course, when she opens her mouth what comes out is, “I want to make an appeal.”

Gina laughs, but it isn't a nice sound. “An _appeal?_ An appeal to who? Are you planning on asking God to go back and look over His work for errors? A human's fate in the afterlife has not been _changed_ since the Resurrection. And anyway, even if something like that existed, which it doesn't, you're a _guide._ You don't practice law. What the Hell are you thinking?”

“I’m thinking that this can't be right.” Trinity just keeps talking, doesn’t she? “It doesn't make any sense at all.”

Gina's voice gets dangerously sharp, her eyes narrowing. “What doesn’t make _sense_ is you driving your career in the ground by not listening to me. I don’t know what’s gotten into you. Now do what I tell you, and bring. Her. Back.”

Trinity takes a deep breath, runs through her options again in her head. It doesn't take very long; she doesn't actually have any.

“Okay,” she says in what she hopes is an appropriately submissive mumble, “Okay.”

Ayana, who’s been uncharacteristically silent during this conversation, looks alarmed. Trinity cuts her off with a look. 

Gina watches them go, looking mostly irritated at the interruption, but of course, there's also fear. Trinity isn't the only one who could get in trouble for this if it went too far. She's at the bottom of the food chain, dispensable, and Gina is barely higher up than Trinity. If anything goes wrong, everyone gets skittish, distances themselves as much as possible. The thought of being blamed, being punished, is petrifying. Just like Trinity was potentially ruining her career by breaking the rules, Gina is potentially ruining hers just by having something go awry like this in her department. God may be all about forgiveness, but angels aren’t. It’s not what they’re taught.

As soon as the door shuts behind them, Ayana grabs Trinity's arm. 

“You're not really gonna do what she said, are you?”

Trinity rolls her eyes. “No,” she says anxiously, “We're gonna try something else.”

She says it with more certainty than she really has. She doesn't exactly have a plan so much as a vague memory.

“What?” Ayana asks impatiently. 

“She said appeals don’t happen,” Trinity says distractedly, “But they do. Or, one did. I remember, during my training, I heard something-- There was a human sent to Hell, and everybody was talking about him fighting it.”

“Did it work? Did he get out?”

“I don't know. I don't remember, everything was so busy and it was just bits of a conversation between two coworkers passing through…” Trinity trails off.

That day had been busy. Every day during her first year had been busy. Newly born, ripped from her quiet, solitary place in the sky, confused and afraid, she was thrown into the chaos of the Floor without a second thought. It was a shock, and her body ached and burned in its new form, but this was her purpose, and she’d forced herself into shape quickly.

She remembers all the new voices, new faces and sounds, remembers being dragged around, wide-eyed and soaking it all in for the first days of training before finally standing on her own. 

And in all of that, she remembers bits and pieces, phrases she'd clung to with no context.

_Did you hear?_

_Yeah, it's crazy._

_Someone told me she loved him, and that's why she did it._

_I heard it was a filing mistake, Jesus, you're so melodramatic._

_Well whoever made that mistake… God bless them, I feel bad, but they're out the door._

_I mean, hey, if it really was an error, the guy can't just stay damned for no reason, right? They have to do something._

_Nobody's decision is just changed. That's not a thing._

_Huh, tell that to Jeremy Ovalles. He thinks it’s a thing._

_Humans don’t know anything. They’re clueless and would do anything to save their own skin._

_Wouldn’t we all?_

An angel’s memory is amazing. It has to be. All those case files Trinity had been thinking about memorizing word for word centuries ago? She still remembers them today. Humans’ memories are foggy and unreliable, slipping from their minds like sand through their fingers as soon as they happen, but for angels, it’s different. Trinity’s people can recall past events to their mind and watch them play out like recordings in sharp detail.

But jeez, those particular days were loud and hazy. Trinity had overheard that conversation between two guides gossipping on their lunch break, as she looked wildly between her bored mentor showing her how to use the clock-in cards and a hysterical dead human child still crying for her mom.

God, her life sucks.

 _Anyway,_ Trinity can’t remember as well as she might be able to if she hadn’t been half insane when it happened, but she knows what they were talking about. A human who’d been sent to Hell, insisting there must have been a mistake. She doesn’t know if he’d been picked up by a guide or by the Fallen, she doesn’t know any of the details at all, but she knows that. 

Something like this _has_ happened before. It’s not completely hopeless. And they have a name. Jeremy Ovalles.

It gives her a surge of motivation, and she looks up at Ayana with a new spark of hope.

“Uh, are you okay?” Ayana asks, looking concerned, “Your face, it’s kind of--”

“What?”

“You look a little--”

“ _What?_ ”

“You look like you’re making an expression.”

“Shut up. Do you want my help or not? Come on, there’s somewhere we need to go.”

“Awesome,” Ayana says, sounding like she means the opposite, “Hey, do you have any comfortable shoes I can borrow?” She looks down at the heels she’s been carrying in her hand since the Judgment, which are impractically tall and sparkly, and now half covered in mud. “These are super hot, so I brought them back from the river, but bad for being dragged around all day.”

Rolling her eyes for what must be a record amount of times in a day, Trinity changes their direction yet again to stop by her room.

 

\---

 

Carrying her other jacket, a towel, a blazer she had to dig embarrassingly far into the back of her closet to find, and the one extra pair of comfortable shoes she has, Trinity steps out of her room. Ayana, who at least has stopped dripping and now only looks slightly damp and miserable, is waiting in the hallway, leaning against the wall with her arms folded over her chest and head turned up toward the ceiling like the cool angsty young adult she is.

Stunned, arms full of various garments, Trinity wonders for the sixth time today how this is her life.

“Okay,” she announces with much more authority than she’s ever used to announce anything before, “Here’s how we’re gonna do this. Dry yourself off, put these on, we’ll go look for some records, and then we’re going to see our old friend Darius. Remember him?”

“Yes,” Ayana says slowly, as Trinity shoves the towel, blazer, and shoes in her general direction. “I do. Um, I think I meant more like sneakers though?”

“This isn’t Payless,” Trinity says, dropping the sturdy black boots onto the floor in front of Ayana while she puts her replacement jacket around her own shoulders, “These are what I had. Take them or go barefoot.”

“Fine, jeez,” Ayana mutters, towel in her hair. She starts to pull on the boots. 

“Good,” Trinity says, “We need you looking presentable anyway.”

Ayana looks at the blazer in a way that can only be described as severely doubtful. “Is that what that’s for?”

“It’s professional,” Trinity says defensively. It’s actually hideous, pinstriped and a weird greyish brownish color and three sizes too big for either of them, but Trinity doesn’t really have an expansive wardrobe at the moment, ok? It's what Trinity wore the one time she had to go to court and now she's passing it on.

“If you say so,” Ayana says, still looking at the blazer like it’s done something to personally offend her. She reluctantly puts it on, and shakes the towel out of her hair, dark curls falling down onto her shoulders.

“You look. . .” Trinity searches for the right word. “Good,” she says lamely.

Ayana stares, unimpressed. “Tell me the truth.”

“You look like you tried on your mom’s clothes and fell into a puddle. But it’s better than it was before, I swear.”

“Shouldn’t angels not be able to lie?” Ayana grumbles, handing her the towel.

“I’m not lying,” Trinity says earnestly. She’s totally lying. What was she thinking with the blazer? Oh well, too late now. “And I’m gonna need you to hand over those heels,” Trinity adds.

“What?” Ayana says in surprise. “No.”

“You’re not using them now, are you? They’re covered in mud and-- what appears to be a small beetle is crawling out of one of them. Which. Ew.” 

“I love these heels,” Ayana says, holding them to her chest protectively. 

“Look, you’ll get them back,” Trinity reassures her without really having any weight to put behind that promise, which apparently is her M.O. today.

“Fine,” Ayana says, holding out the patchy glittering heels. It takes a few seconds for her to actually let them go, but Trinity wins their disturbing little tug-of-war and throws them in her room with the towel, slamming the door and shuttering as she imagines whatever creatures that have infested the shoes making a new home in her walls.

Honestly, things have really taken a sharp downturn for Trinity since this morning.

Finally ready, they walk shakily down the hallway, an angel regretting her life choices as she makes them and a human in skinny jeans and a giant ugly blazer facing eternal damnation.

Life, right? Or, you know. After-life.

 

\---

 

They swing by the Archives first. 

Trinity heads toward the Human Records and Ayana trails after her, looking around in awe.

“It’s like a warehouse,” Ayana says in awe. “Like Ikea but bigger.”

“Yeah, if Ikea was filled with questionably shelved records of human death and monthly wing comb expenses,” Trinity mutters. It would be under _J_ or _O. . ._

The place actually is pretty impressive. It’s enormous and what some unkind people, like Trinity, would call poorly organized. But it makes her feel better being there, smelling the paper and manila folder smell. It’s something about the way everything is laid out for her if she needs it. Anything she could want to know, she could find just by knowing the alphabet. The rate of global warming swallowing the Earth, the Floor’s electricity bill from twenty years ago, the number of jazz musicians to die in 1984 and the exact percentage of those deaths that were due to alcoholism, you name it.

She could spend days in the aisles, going from shelf to shelf and reading for hours. It’s that angel thing again. They’re a bunch of know-it-alls and if they lived on Earth as humans they’d all be considered huge dorks.

Toward the end of the _O_ section sits three full shelves of Ovalleses. 

“When I was in the river,” Ayana says, her voice a little strange, “I saw my life.”

“Yeah?” Trinity says conversationally, sifting through folders. She goes past the Jacks and backs up when she sees the Juanas. “What’d you see?”

“I saw things I didn’t remember before, that I couldn’t possibly have remembered.”

“Like what?”

“My baptism. My birth. That was kinda gross.”

“It’s not gross,” Trinity says distractedly, “It’s an ancient religious rite that symbolizes purification and being received into a community of God.”

“I meant the birth thing,” Ayana says. “Seeing myself be born was gross.”

“Oh. I guess that makes more sense.” _There_ they are. A nice row of folders with _Ovalles, Jeremy_ on the tab. “So, was it nice?”

“What?”

“Your baptism.”

“I guess?” Ayana says. “My mom and my grandma were still arguing over what to name me as they walked into the church.”

“Ayana's a fine name,” Trinity says placatingly as she opens a folder. Nope, this guy went straight to Heaven. He was a pediatrician who did work for Doctors Without Borders. Ugh. 

“It's just weird how much I know now. And I don't just know it, I _remember_ it. It's like my head is full. Is that supposed to happen?” Ayana asks.

“Yeah, probably. Sure.” Trinity discards a Jeremy who was a circus clown in Venezuela in the 1930s. Not that she has anything against circus clowns, it's just that they're all evil and definitely going to Hell without question.

Ayana squints at her suspiciously. “I'm starting to feel like you just say things in a way that sounds like they're true when really you have no idea what you're talking about.”

Trinity barely glances up. “Are you just realizing that now?”

There’s really only three more Jeremys, and if it’s not this next one--

“Gotcha!” Trinity says triumphantly.

“Let me see.” Ayana says, crowding over Trinity’s shoulder.

“Jeremy Ovalles, age 47,” Trinity reads out loud. “He died in 1809, in a bar fight. He had an estranged daughter and no other family, and he made a living as a knocker-upper.”

Ayana looks horrified. “As a _what?_ ” 

“He went around banging on people’s doors to wake them up in the morning,” Trinity says.

“Why would it be called something like that?”

“Like what?”

“It sounds like he knocked people up for a living!”

“He did. Alarm clocks really sucked back then.”

“Never mind,” Ayana sighs.

Trinity keeps reading. “He was sentenced to Hell… But this says he’s still there.”

“Maybe he’s the wrong guy?”

“No, it has to be him. None of the others make any sense.”

Ayana shrugs helpfully.

“Okay, whatever. We got what we came for, now let’s just get out of here.” Trinity takes the whole folder and signs it out in the front.

“I’m nothing like Jeremy anyway,” Ayana says indignantly as they leave. “I’m way cooler. And I’d never be a knocker-upper.”

“Yeah, ok,” Trinity says. “Tell that to your outfit.”

“I can’t believe you just said that.”

Their voices echo back through the halls as they leave the records behind on their infinite shelves.

 

\---


	6. AYANA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //
> 
> Ayana feels like getting very, very drunk. That’s what she would usually do in situations like this. The last time she got blackout fucked up was a few weeks ago, when her ex texted her on the same day that her mom visited and her manager screamed at her for ten minutes for losing her 7-eleven visor. This seems proportional to that.
> 
> //

\---

 

Turns out that where they’re going is, wait for it, all the way on the other side of the place from where they just were. People say living in New York means a lot of walking, but this is kind of insane. 

Actually though, Ayana’s starting to get the hang of this. Go one place, sort of get what you came for but not really, and then head to the next bizarre place to do the same thing over again.

It’s frustrating and exhausting, but there’s not really another option.

The hallways wind confusingly from room to room; in some places, the halls are narrow and dark like snakes, and in others they’re large and well lit. Ayana could never have remembered the way back to the reception area on her own, but she does recognize the part of the ceiling where the wallpaper is peeling off, so that’s something.

When they walk in, Darius is right where they left him, humming and typing. He looks up in the middle of adjusting his bowtie.

“Hey, guys!” he says cheerfully. The glow around his head gets brighter. Ayana sees Trinity, whose eyes haven’t been glowing since the jungle, wince. “I was wondering where you’d gone off to.”

“I took her to Gina.” Trinity says darkly.

“Oh,” Darius says. “Sounds like it didn’t go great.”

“No.”

“Hm. Well, you always have a plan, right?” He looks over at Ayana and leans toward her conspiratorially. “Trinity always has a plan.” 

“Is it a plan she always has, or more like a scrappy half-baked scheme?” Ayana asks thoughtfully.

“What I have,” Trinity says, ignoring Ayana’s comment and dropping the folder in front of Darius, “is a name.”

“Ovalles?” Darius reads.

“At his Judgment, he was sent to Hell. But I remember hearing the name, and they were talking about an error in the office. They were saying the guy was trying to get his sentence changed.”

Darius goes over Jeremy’s file.

“Right. . . Uh, not that I don’t wanna help you guys out, but why’d you bring this to me?” he asks.

“You’re the receptionist,” Trinity says in a _duh_ voice, “You have your own records of everyone that goes in and out of the Hall.” 

“I mean, who goes in, yes. Nobody ever really goes _out_ this way,” Darius points out. “That’s kind of just a thing you did a few hours ago.”

“Look, do you have anything or not?”

Darius shrugs, and his fingers fly across his keyboard. After a few minutes of hmming and searching, his face lights up. “I found it!”

He prints the pages out and slides them over the desk toward them. Ayana reads over Trinity’s shoulder. This report has photos. The guy is middle aged but looks carefree and young, like one of those people who smirk for their mugshot, think they’re hilarious, and in general are extremely assured of their own cleverness. His jaw is tilted up and his eyes are sparkling, which is pretty impressive for a grainy photo that’s splattered with what looks distressingly like blood.

“Oh, that must have been during one of our pizza parties,” Darius says wistfully. He reaches over and flips the page. This one has no sauce, or anything resembling blood.

“See, this is what I don’t get,” Trinity says. “It says he’s still in Hell. But I know something happened with this guy. I was just barely born, though. Darius, do you remember anything?”

Darius shrugs helplessly. “Really, all I remember from that day was fighting over who decided to get mushrooms on half, and from there it got pretty ugly-- OH!”

“What?” Ayana asks, still squinting at the pictures. From a certain angle, he almost looks familiar...

“Hold on a minute. Let me just see the date, and I can check something--” He pulls a clipboard from his seemingly endless supply of clipboards. This one has a pile of papers even bigger than the ones Ayana had filled out earlier.

“Here it is!” Darius takes out a sheet of paper, raises his eyebrows, and shoves it over the desk. Ayana crowds even closer. It’s a sign-in sheet. Except, in big loopy script, Jeremy’s name appears on the sheet twice. Once in the sign-in column, and once…

In the sign- _out_ column.

A column that, other than that single name, is completely empty.

“Hold on,” Trinity says accusingly, “I thought I was the one who ‘just started this a few hours ago.’”

“You were,” Darius insists. “This sign-out part is never used. I don’t even know why it’s _there._ I always assumed it was because Judith on the night shift used to be the guardian of a middle school hallway monitor.”

“So Jeremy signed out,” Ayana says. “I wasn’t the only one to ever leave that place like this.”

“Yeah,” Darius agrees, “Except that Jeremy here at least followed the rules and signed out. This isn’t like you, Trinity, it’s really not.” He shakes his head in mock shame.

If it’s meant to get under Trinity’s skin, it works. She sends him a look that would probably kill if whatever it is Darius and Trinity are could be killed, and then she takes the wrinkled, yellowed sign-in sheet from a million years ago. “So I was right. He went in and out. He had a trial, I know it. This is what we need.”

“Need for?” Ayana asks.

“To go to legal. And then be done with this, so I can get back to work and you can go far, far away and live in the clouds or whatever.” Trinity says. She holds up the sign-in sheet in her hand and looks at Darius. “Can I get a copy of this?” 

“Keep it,” Darius waves her off. “What am I gonna do with it?”

“By the way,” he asks Ayana as Trinity produces an empty folder from nowhere, “What’s with that thing?” He waves his hands generally in Ayana’s direction, looking a little scared.

“I know,” Ayana says, adjusting the blazer’s collar, “It’s bad.”

“I mean, I wasn’t gonna say anything--”

“It’s just a piece of clothing,” Trinity interrupts irritably before he can finish, turning to leave. “Thanks for everything.”

“Anytime. Oh, and hey.” Darius calls after them, grinning, “You’re totally getting an invite to the next pizza party!”

Trinity looks a little sick.

Ayana tries not to laugh as they leave reception, passing a serene looking old woman and a handsome winged guy whose eyes get wider and wider the longer he looks at her. Usually, she’d just assume he thought she was cute, and then she'd compliment him on his good taste, but the wings and the glowing remind her that she’s not with regular people anymore. She's with a bunch of weirdos, except here, she's the weirdo. She’s always hated when people stare at her.

Whatever. It's fine.

 

\---

 

The place in front of them feels like the lobby when they first walked in. Showy. The doors are sparkling glass. In large gold letters, the words HIGHER POWERS LEGAL SERVICES hang over them.

Inside is clean and air-conditioned and modern. It reminds Ayana of the office Kim used to temp in, where Ayana would go as a kid and crawl under the desk and make paperclip necklaces, linking them into long chains, wrapping them around her little wrists until paperclip bracelets covered her arms, drawing neon pink and yellow on her skin with highlighters as Kim worked above her.

At the front desk, staring at a computer screen, sits a woman with thick framed black glasses and a tight bun pulled to the back of her head, and of course, large feathery wings. Ayana just can’t really get used to that. She wonders if everyone in this place has to cut holes into the back of their clothes themselves where their wings sprout out of their back, or if the clothes come made that way.

She asks Trinity this.

“They come like that. Where do you think angels shop?” Trinity says, raising an eyebrow like it should be obvious.

Ayana shrugs. “Victoria’s Secret?”

She gets a predictable eye roll in response.

“Hello, can I help you two with something?” asks the lady at the desk when she looks up from her typing. She looks a little startled by Ayana, but she recovers quickly. Law people, Ayana thinks, would be good at poker. Too bad about gambling being illegal and everything.

“Yes,” Trinity says politely, “I need to talk to someone in criminal defense. Someone who was practicing in the 18th century would be good.”

The woman at the desk nods, looking bored.

“It’ll be a few minutes. Here, have some water while you wait.”

Ayana takes the glass that the woman hands her, and one of the slices of lemon from the small plate on the desk. She heads over to the benches along the sides of the walls where Trinity’s gone to sit. 

“What are we gonna ask them?” Ayana says, squeezing the lemon and then arranging it on the side of the glass, because she’s fancy like that. She also kind of feels like she should have a straw with the wrapping only on the end, or a salad with forks of various sizes.

“We’re gonna show them the sign-in sheet, and we’re gonna ask if they have any record of Ovalles’s trial.”

“What if they don’t have any idea what we’re talking about?”

Trinity glances at her. “Then I have no idea. We’re back where we started. You’re probably going to Hell and Gina’s gonna kill me a lot sooner that I thought.”

Ayana crunches ice in her teeth unhappily. That’s the answer she was afraid of. A pit forms in her stomach, the one that’s been there all along but she’s been able to ignore until now. Now it’s growing quickly, dread clawing its way up her chest in a way that air conditioning and lemon water can’t fix.

It’s so weird that the feelings she had on Earth are the same ones she has now that she’s apparently dead. Shouldn’t she feel different? Lighter or something?

“Excuse me,” a clear voice says above them. Ayana looks up.

In front of them is a woman with a small, serious face and thick straight black hair falling neatly just past her shoulders. The feathers on her wings are pristine, perfectly groomed. She's wearing a sharp black suit and stiletto heels that terrify even Ayana a little. Everything about her is sharp, actually. Still, she looks young. If she were human, Ayana would think she looked about twenty, around her own age.

“My name is Jennifer. I’m a defense attorney here. Is there something I can help you with?”

Trinity stands up. “I wanted to ask about a trial that happened a while back. The defendant was a human. His name was Jeremy Ovalles.”

Ayana almost sees something flash in Jennifer’s eyes when Trinity says the name, but it’s gone as soon as it appeared. It might’ve been her imagination.

“Humans don’t go on trial in our courts,” Jennifer says evenly.

“I know,” Trinity says, “But I think this one did. And I have this.” Trinity pulls out the folder with Darius’s sign-in sheet and hands it to Jennifer, who looks at it for a minute. 

When she looks up, she stares at Ayana, then Trinity. Ayana feels like a bug under her gaze. 

“I don’t know what this is,” Jennifer finally says, “Or why a human would’ve left the Hall of Judgment to come back up here. But it’s not my department, and it has nothing to do with me.”

The room is silent for a moment, with nothing but the sound of the ice popping in Ayana’s glass behind them.

“Do you know anyone who it would have something to do with?” says Ayana.

Jennifer gives her a vague _Who the hell even are you_ look. “No, I don’t.”

“Is there anything--”

“Look, I’m really busy. If you need legal services, then I can help you. Otherwise... I don’t know what’s going on here, but you’re going to get help someone else.”

From the corner of her eye, Ayana sees Trinity shift.

“Fine.” Trinity says carefully. “We will. We’ll just keep bothering people in the department about it, and if that doesn’t work we’ll ask everyone else we can find. Or start putting up flyers. I know you don’t know anything about this--” Trinity pauses and looks over to the desk where the woman with the glasses is sitting.

“--But wouldn’t you rather just handle this yourself? Before it gets out of control?”

Jennifer looks at them, eyes dark and calculating. She takes a minute before she speaks. It feels like ten.

“Why don’t you two come into my office.”

 

\---

 

Jennifer’s office, like the whole place, is a lot nicer than everywhere else Ayana’s been dragged around to so far. Everything is perfectly organized and in its place, the surfaces are gleaming and everything is a different shade of grey. The floor looks like you could eat off of it, which is a disgusting saying, but it just comes to mind in this place.

The most interesting thing is the wall across from Jennifer's desk, which looks like a large window out of the corner of your eye, but is actually a mirror covering the entire length of the wall. Maybe angels have vanity problems?

Jennifer sits at her desk and gestures in front of her. “Have a seat.”

The chairs in front of the desk are the kind that are so modern they're more like art than furniture. They're a shiny metallic black, and they curve in a weird zig zag way that looks interesting but is impossible to actually sit on.

Ayana slips a couple times trying.

“What exactly do you want to know.” Jennifer says. She has a way of saying questions with no question mark at the end.

“Anything about this man, this trial, or any other trial like it. Anything you know.” Trinity sounds urgent, like they're finally getting somewhere.

“Why? Because of this girl?” Jennifer nods her head toward Ayana.

“Yes. We want to see if there were any mistakes made, if we can make an appeal to someone.”

Jennifer stares at the space in front of her for a long time, her face unreadable.

“I hadn't been practicing that long when he came to me,” she says, her voice startling in the silence of the room. “But already, I was known for being good. I hadn't lost a case yet. It wasn't even anything that glamorous; Public intoxication, disorderly conduct, indecent exposure--”

“Aren't you guys supposed to be angels?” Ayana says, alarmed.

“We’re repressed,” Jennifer says mildly. “You’d be surprised. Anyway, one day, a human man came into my office, dripping wet and in shock, saying he needed a lawyer. I had never even spoken to a human before.

“He refused to tell me his name until I agreed to help him. He told me how it happened; About how he died, about his sentence, how afterward he ran as fast as he could out the way he came. And how he was innocent.

“Of course, he made it sound like he was, well, angelic on Earth. It must've been what he thought was required. He would've done anything to avoid Hell. Most people would. He was just the only one to actually do it. Well,” Jennifer looks consideringly at Ayana, “Until now.”

“When I got ahold of his file,” she continues, “I saw about the estranged kid, the lying and petty crimes, the drinking. It wasn't what he'd told me, but it still wasn't enough to give him over to the Devil. I was inexperienced, but I knew that. I thought, maybe Purgatory would make sense. But not this.”

Jennifer pauses, staring into some corner of her mind where the past is.

“So what did you do?” Ayana says.

“I shouldn't have done it,” Jennifer says quietly. “I was overconfident, and ambitious. And foolish.” The words sound mechanical, practiced. Ayana’s not sure Jennifer believes them herself. 

“I had something to prove, and I thought I could do anything. So I took on the first ever case with a human defendant in an angelic trial. I didn't eat or sleep for months. I was always working, always looking for new angles. I just barely got them to even let it go to trial.

“But it did. And we lost. They said, His word is final and there is no changing it. It was insane. All the work I did, all the evidence I presented-- It was for nothing. Jeremy went to Hell, and I was laughed at for years until I built myself back up.

“So that’s how it ended. I lost. And so will you. The Judgment of souls isn’t something that can be questioned. It’s not changed. It’s not law that we have access to.”

Ayana feels sick. 

In her mind, she had imagined a montage of glasses and courtrooms and legal pads and other legal things, something solid, a path leading to her triumphantly convincing a winged jury of her innocence.

And she was wrong. 

But she’s always been like that. Hoping for things, and making plans, until it turns out that it was all in her head, and the possibility she’d been leaning on had never been real. In her life on Earth, it had worn her down like sandpaper, made her give up her childlikeness when she was still a child.

But now, the stakes are higher. This wasn’t a plan to get back in touch with her friend, or to go back to school, or anything else that she could keep telling herself she was gonna do soon. This was her last hope. There’s no delusionally reassuring herself after this, no way to keep chugging along.

Her grandma used to tell her about Heaven, and the priest at St. Anne’s around the corner from her block as a kid had told her about Hell. She’d been told that Heaven was a place where the saints and angels live, and that it was a better place than Earth. All the suffering and pain she saw around her, her grandma had told her while Ayana sat on the floor by her feet, didn’t exist in Heaven. It was warm and peaceful, where you see your loved ones who’ve died, and know soon you’ll be reconnected with the ones still on Earth. 

And Hell, she’d learned while sitting in dark wooden benches surrounded by the smell of incense, was where people went when they were not faithful to God. When they hurt other people, when they sinned and didn’t repent. She’d been eight years old, afraid of her first confession because it meant she’d have to admit that she pushed her sister sometimes for no reason, that she didn’t know the words to the hymns they sang, and she said “Oh my God” all the time even though she wasn’t supposed to.

Hell had terrified her then. In her mind she saw a pit of fire filled with all the monsters she told herself weren’t real. She made lists of all the bad things she'd done in her head, to make sure there were none that she’d forgotten about that would make her go to Hell. She prayed every night in bed, afraid if she didn’t something bad would happen to her or her family, and she would have made it happen by not praying.

But that was the superstition that all kids have. She’d grown out of it, gotten busy with life on Earth and never thought about any other kind of life again.

Maybe that was what did this to her. Maybe she should have kept praying.

That thought is heavy, dark and sad, weighed down with the past. It shakes Ayana out of her path of thought and makes her mad. She’s not a kid anymore, and praying had never done anything for her.

She looks up and sees Trinity and Jennifer staring each other down. Sitting across from each other, Ayana sees for the first time how alike they look. Not in features, but in their body language, in the way they square their shoulders, fold their arms, and look straight forward unblinkingly.

“Wait,” Ayana says, a little loudly. Trinity and Jennifer break out of their staring contest, both heads turning toward her in surprise, the mirror broken. Ayana’s been pretty quiet up until now, letting Trinity drag her around, taking in all the surprisingly crappy offices of an angel world.

“I need your help. There’s no other way I can do this. I guess nobody else has challenged one of these sentences, other than you. I can’t go to Hell. I can’t burn forever. Please.”

Jennifer shakes her head. “I’m sorry, there’s nothing I can do.”

“Think about if it worked,” Ayana pushes. “You’d have won an impossible case. I watch How To Get Away With Murder. I know how much lawyers love that kind of thing! We just need to try.”

“It won’t work.” Jennifer says. “That's the point. It's the impossible kind of impossible.”

“What if it’s different?” Ayana begs. “This time could be different. And you’d never know. And someone you could have freed won’t be, without having even been tried.”

Jennifer, for a second, almost looks like she’s hesitating. It leaves quickly, and her face is stone again, her voice unmovable. “Again, I’m very sorry. But I can’t help you.”

Ayana feels her heart sink. She tried, failed, and tried again. And failed again. And that’s it. There’s nothing else she can do.

Maybe Hell won’t be so bad. Maybe they have hot cheetos or something.

Trinity stands up smoothly, looking moody but apparently used to chairs that aren’t real chairs. Ayana stands less gracefully, but with much more rage. She glares at Jennifer, falling out of her seat angrily.

“Thank you for your help,” Trinity says briskly, and turns to leave.

“Yeah,” Ayana says forcefully as she storms out, “Thanks, _Jennifer._ ”

Jennifer says nothing.

 

\-----

 

Ayana feels like getting very, very drunk. That’s what she would usually do in situations like this. The last time she got blackout fucked up was a few weeks ago, when her ex texted her on the same day that her mom visited and her manager screamed at her for ten minutes for losing her 7-eleven visor. This seems proportional to that.

Taking a complete turn, and shocking Ayana almost as much as the icy river did, it’s only seconds after Ayana thinks this that her and Trinity appear in front of what seems to be a bar.

Ayana looks questioningly at Trinity, who just shrugs. “Last meal? I don’t know, whatever. I need a drink.”

They trudge in, probably looking defeated and miserable.

It’s a dive bar, complete with an ironic brick wall and a flickering neon sign that says “UNHAPPY HOUR.” Under that is a piece of paper with “5 - 7 PM” scrawled across it, but the 7 is scribbled out with Sharpie and a 10 is put in its place. Oh, yeah. This is her kind of place.

Sitting down at the bar, Trinity puts her head in her arms. At the other end of the bar the bartender gives them a knowing look and heads over.

“How long before I have to go… there?” Ayana says uneasily.

“Gin. And a peach mojito.” Trinity tells the bartender. “I don’t know,” Trinity adds in response to Ayana’s question, her voice lower. “Soon.”

“How’d you know about the mojito?”

“Same way I know about the hamster you accidentally killed with nail polish remover when you were eight. We have files on everyone. Severely detailed files.”

“You know about Scratches?”

“Terrible name for a hamster.”

“I don’t want to go to Hell.”

“They never do,” Trinity mutters, “I tried. I really did. But there’s nothing else.”

“I know,” Ayana says, her stomach threatening to come up. “Thanks for trying.”

They sit in a moment of silence, Ayana mourning for her life and Trinity probably for the sheer number of facial expressions she was forced to make in the last few hours.

“What’s Hell like?”

“Hot.” Trinity says. “And it hurts. That’s all I know, I’ve never been there. From what I’ve been told, it’s unbearable, but you just keep bearing it. Every second feels worse than the last.”

“Thanks for sugar-coating it,” Ayana says dryly. The bartender, a guy in a button down shirt open over a T-shirt like it’s the nineties, comes with their drinks and Ayana orders three shots of tequila. Trinity drinks half of her glass and tells the bartender to make it six.

Ready to spend her “last meal” wallowing in the dread of unbearable torture hanging over her head, Ayana drinks her mojito. It’s so good. The peach flavor and the sugar on the glass taste like sweetness and rum on her tongue. It’s the best thing she’s ever tasted, but to be fair, it’s probably made a lot better by the fact she knows there are almost certainly no cocktails in Hell. Except maybe Bloody Marys. Ha.

“I don't know if this is your thing,” Trinity offers, “But I have heard they have Jazz and Blues Day every other Friday.”

“It's not,” Ayana says glumly.

“Probably just a rumor anyway.”

Music plays faintly in the background. The playlist here is weird; One minute what sounds like sad indie hipster music is playing, and the next what Ayana swears is a Cardi B song comes on.

Their alcohol comes. Ayana does all the shots in a row. 

“And we're completely sure I can't just hide out here forever?” Ayana says, wiping her mouth.

“Um. No.”

“I could be really helpful! I could be like an assistant or a barhand or something.”

“Or something.”

“Do you have my resume in all those creepy files of yours? I have great references, if you don't mind some poor customer service reviews.”

Trinity looks greatly unimpressed.

“Fine, _several_ poor reviews.”

Trinity throws back one of her shots and says nothing.

“ _Alright,_ I got fired from C-Town for telling a customer she got her money out slower than my dead grandma.”

“We don’t have human assistants.” Trinity says.

“I almost went to bartending school.” Ayana’s starting to feel a little lightheaded. Is that weird? It's not like she's eaten anything since dying. Can souls even get drunk?

The way the room spins when she sits up straight implies that yes.

“Careful,” Trinity warns as she holds her third glass up to her lips, not looking exactly like the poster angel for responsibility herself.

“How hot, exactly?” Ayana wonders out loud. “Frying pan hot or ‘at least now I can wear my short shorts without getting rude looks’ hot?” 

“Charred flesh hot.” comes a voice from behind her.

Ayana and Trinity both swivel around on their stools. Standing in front of them, five feet of brisk impatience and seven inches of stiletto, is Jennifer. Her eyes are dark and serious as ever, wings pulled back and hair clipped away from her face.

“Alright.” Jennifer says. “I’ll help you.”

 

\---


	7. TRINITY

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //
> 
> Trinity prays regularly, as all angels are supposed to. She doesn’t know if her prayers have ever been quite as bewildered or viscerally angry as they are right at this moment.
> 
> //

\---

 

What Trinity had in mind when she went to see a random lawyer about a trial that technically never happened, she doesn’t know. But it certainly wasn’t sitting in a bar, tipsy and wavering on the edge of actually drunk, next to a wasted Ayana slurring about the lights, at a table covered in a thick layer of papers explaining the fine details of angelic law.

Things never do seem to go the way she has in mind, do they?

The basics of what Jennifer tells them, in short, dumbed down sentences that would be insulting if Trinity wasn’t barely grasping the concept of them as it was, is that they’re completely screwed.

“So why are you doing it? Why help us?” Trinity says, trying not to think too hard about what this could (aka probably will) do to her own career. Why is _she_ doing this again?

“That’s the only case I’ve ever lost,” Jennifer says intensely. “I don’t lose. And if I win this one, it’s like I won that one too. It cancels out, makes my record perfect. The way it should be.”

“So, you’re crazy.” Ayana says sloppily.

“I prefer to think of it as driven.” Jennifer says. She actually does look a little crazy. Trinity figures it’s just regular lawyer wiredness. They’re all high strung and chronically stressed out. Trinity may be miserable and a workaholic, but at least her big problem with her job is the soul crushing boredom. Imagine having actual lives depend on your ability to think.

“Okay,” Trinity says. “So how does this work?”

“First we send in a request for a preliminary hearing. Which I already did.”

“And then?”

“We wait for them to tell us no, which is when we’ll request it again. And while we’re waiting, we gather as much evidence as we can.”

“I have all of her records back in the office.” Trinity says. “But what kind of court is this going to be?”

Jennifer, who had gotten a sensible bourbon, neat, shrugs. “With Jeremy Ovalles, they let him have a jury. . . sort of. It was all out of order, because usually the judgment _is_ the trial. That’s not what our courts were built for.”

“A jury means she has to appear a certain way to appeal to their weaknesses,” says Trinity as she glances over at Ayana, who’s currently looking into her empty glass with one eye as if it’s a telescope. 

“Yes,” Jennifer says skeptically. “We’ll have to work on that.”

“I’m great at manipulating people’s emotions,” Ayana declares loudly.

“Yes, well. Don’t say things like that when you’re in front of a jury that you’re trying to convince of your good character,” Trinity says.

“I know what I’m doing,” Ayana insists. “Hey, is that the floor?”

Jennifer looks distantly concerned. “Is our alcohol even safe for humans to drink?”

“It’s fine,” Trinity says uncertainly, shoving a glass of water into Ayana’s hand. Ayana starts blowing bubbles into it with a straw, spilling water all over the table. “It’ll be fine.”

 

\---

 

It turns out, Jennifer informs them after several hours of hiding out in her office full of pristine surfaces, that they’re getting a hearing. She explains to Trinity and Ayana that this means they’ll present their case in front of a judge, which Trinity already knew, and that their best shot is to present a combination of qualitative anecdotal evidence with chronological emphasis on previous outcomes relating to abuse of process, which Trinity definitely did _not_ know, or understand a word of.

Trinity kind of has whiplash. It was just a few hours ago that all hope was lost, and now they have actual momentum. And a binder. As everyone knows, your chance of success increases proportionally to how organized your binder is, and theirs is meticulous.

What nags at her just a little, though, is how fast their situation changed. Historically, just getting an assignment report done is like pulling teeth, and requires at least two stamps of approval from bored officious looking superiors. And now this impossible trial is in place just like that? Sure, it had to go back and forth a few times between Jennifer’s harassed assistant and the faceless but formidable Court System, but it still seems awfully quick. Since when do things just line up conveniently?

Then again, isn’t that what Trinity wanted? Efficiency. It’s all she ever wants. That, and a nicer desk. So why look a gift horse in the eye or whatever, she decides as she flips through their binder.

“Here, we’ll use this,” Jennifer says, giving Trinity a reproachful look that implies she isn’t too sure about anyone that isn’t Jennifer touching her binder.

Trinity takes the “evidence” (a bird’s-eye-view photo of a fourteen year old Ayana helping an old lady take her groceries upstairs) and clips it with the rest.

“I didn’t even wanna help her.” Ayana chimes in. “That bitch used to throw her flip flops at me and my sisters from her window when we played on the sidewalk.”

“You’re probably going to testify in court,” Jennifer points out, “And when you do it’s generally best not to say the first things that pop into your head.”

“Obviously I wasn’t gonna call someone a bitch in front of a judge,” Ayana mutters, looking dejected. Trinity pats her shoulder awkwardly.

 

\---

 

Trinity has been to court before, once. It was severely boring. She’d been on jury duty, sitting in a room with nineteen other agitated angels from almost every department imaginable for 72 hours while they all tried to agree on whether to an angel named Gabriel should be sentenced to falling. He’d allegedly had _too_ much contact with a human and fallen in love, which is one of the worst taboos besides cannibalism and wearing sandals to work. 

It’s hard to come together to make an important decision when you’re all a bunch of irritable Type A workaholics who would rather be literally anywhere else, but in the end they’d decided there was reasonable doubt, and Gabriel had gotten off with community service, meaning 200 years on Earth serving as a guardian for a mafia family with no chance for promotion. (Joke’s on them. Nobody ever gets promoted anyway, probation or not.) Angels are resentful assholes with superiority complexes and a deep discontentment with life that none of them want to talk about, but they pretty much kind of have each other’s back most of the time. So. At least there's that.

Anyway, this courtroom isn’t like the one Trinity’s been in before. For one thing, it’s smaller. Gabe’s trial had been a big spectacle, held in an gigantic cavernous room full of intricately ugly Corinthian-style pillars, with plenty of witnesses and onlookers and “order in the court!”s and official crap like that. 

This room is much smaller than that one, neat and no nonsense with the judge’s bench on the far wall, and three seats and a podium in front of it. There are no chairs or tables other than those, no room for an audience.

Jennifer goes to sit down in one of the three chairs and motions for Ayana and Trinity to come sit too. The lack of an audience somehow makes the whole thing even more daunting.

“What now?” Ayana whispers loudly once they’re in their seats.

“We’ve already gone over both of your testimonies. Now you leave the rest to me.” Jennifer tucks her already perfect hair behind her ears and makes some notes on one of her papers. Trinity can see her going into focus mode, her face turning both concentrated and carefully blank.

Sitting between them, Ayana looks deeply uncomfortable with the entire situation. Trinity can’t really imagine she looks any different.

The air changes when the door in the corner opens. The temperature drops as the judge, a tall man with salt and pepper hair who would look about forty if he was human, sweeps in. His feathers are as disheveled as his eyebrows, which bear a passing resemblance to badly neglected garden shrubs.

“Sorry I’m late,” the judge says, sounding the opposite of sorry. “I was only just informed of this… last minute situation.”

The tone he uses makes _last minute situation_ seem like a much nicer way of putting what he’s actually thinking.

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Jennifer says, standing. If Trinity thought the way she spoke was sharp before, that was nothing compared to now. Her voice sounds like a blade, deadly and precise. 

“Alright then, let’s begin the hearing. First of all,” the judge looks at Ayana and then down at his papers. “Ms. Santiago,” he reads, “You are accused of living a life on Earth sinful enough to make you unworthy of the Almighty’s salvation. How do you plea?”

“Not guilty,” says Ayana from her seat. Jennifer makes a little snappy motion with her arm.

“Oh!” Ayana says. She stands and moves up to the podium uneasily. “Not guilty,” she repeats into the microphone, producing an unpleasant high pitched crackling sound.

Ayana sits back down. “How was that?” she whispers to Trinity.

“You said those two words really well,” Trinity whispers back supportively. “Firm, but humble. And, er, the exact right number of syllables.”

Ayana’s mouth forms an unhappy line.

“I’ll now listen to the defense’s opening statement,” the judge says doubtfully. 

“Thank you, Your Honor,” Jennifer says again. All the thanking and politeness is starting to remind Trinity unsettlingly of her own job. “Although this is a very strange case, it’s necessary that it go to trial, because as we will prove to you, Ms. Santiago has been accused of sin that she simply has not committed. While the most obvious conclusion would be that, since the accusation comes from God and God’s word is never mistaken, this isn’t a discussion at all, we want to bring up the possibility of angelic error. The steps involved in the records we keep of human lives are numerous and complex, and even workers as well trained and competent as ours can slip up and make a mistake occasionally. I’m sure this, combined with expert testimony and our documentation of Ms. Santiago’s life on Earth, which shows no evidence of sinfulness worthy of damnation, will convince you of the reasonable doubt that would make it unjust to sentence this girl to hellfire.”

“Very well. As this situation is indeed, in your words, very strange, and has no real protocol as any kind of legal procedure, the prosecution will simply be represented by the presence of our _law_ in the court.”

Well. That’s not a great sign. Privately thinking that _expert testimony_ was stretching it, Trinity prepares herself. She’s never loved authority figures, but she’s sure had to prove herself to a lot of them. Uncomfortably comforted by that, Trinity stands.

“As Ms. Santiago’s divinely ordered guide, I offer my testimony in her defense,” Trinity begins, trying not to read too much off her index cards. “My job is to read up on the humans I’m assigned to, in extreme detail, for the purpose of understanding their motivations and making their transition from death to eternal life smoother. In Ms. Santiago’s case, it showed me without a doubt that she does not belong in Hell. 

“Actually, there’s no record of any human who’s picked up by an angelic guide after their death being sent to Hell. It just doesn’t happen. It can’t. Everyone who burns is known to have been brought to their judgment by one of Satan’s workers. This is why, in my opinion, there must have been some kind of mistake made, most likely in filing, prior to the actual judgment.”

Slightly winded from not taking a breath, Trinity takes a seat. Ayana gives her a half hearted thumbs up, and Jennifer nods subtly. Feeling a little like all she’s done is repeat the same story she’s been telling all day, she turns her attention to the judge, who frowns at them.

“Fine. I’ll now hear the testimony of the accused.”

Ayana clears her throat, stands at the podium, and adjusts Trinity’s oversized blazer self-consciously.

“I just want to say that I know this is crazy.”

Jennifer looks as perturbed as Trinity feels. This was not the script they’d agreed on.

“I know this is crazy,” Ayana repeats slowly, “But crazy things happen sometimes, right? Things just happen!”

Trinity wonders for a painful second if Ayana hadn’t sobered up since the bar after all. She could’ve sworn that after she’d slapped her. . .

“And we can’t control them, even though we really want to. Like me dying. I couldn’t control that. And my family, and my whole life. There was always so much stuff that was out of my control, that just _happened_ to me, and you have to just lie down and take it. But the one thing that I could control was how I treated people. And sure, there were boyfriends I ignored, and the neighbor I wanted to hit with my sneaker--”

Trinity prays regularly, as all angels are supposed to. She doesn’t know if her prayers have ever been quite as bewildered or viscerally angry as they are right at this moment.

“--But I _didn’t_ hit her with my sneaker! I didn’t. I’ve hurt people by mistake, like everyone does, we can’t help that because it’s part of being human. But I’ve never looked at someone and decided to hurt them, just to cause pain. And I’m not evil, I swear. I met a Satanist one time. She asked me to come to her house and join her and some of her cult friends for a wine tasting. I didn’t even think of going, it really didn’t even cross my mind at all. Because the Devil just is _that_ much not for me.

“What I’m trying to say is, Hell scared me so much when I was little, and the fear of being a bad person has always stuck in my head since. But I guess it took it being said out loud that I _am_ bad for me to know for myself that I’m not. If burning in Hell is a punishment for lack of morality, then I shouldn’t go there, because I have morality. And it’s not backward. I know what’s right and what’s wrong. And I’ve gone by it. All the mistakes I’ve made don’t take that away.”

Humans are big fans of movies where, right after the characters’ crazy scheme predictably falls apart, the underdog you’ve been rooting for the whole time is victorious in a last minute twist. Trinity hopes desperately that this will be like that. 

She can practically feel Jennifer grinding her teeth.

“You may have a seat. I’ll now take a look at any evidence you wish to submit. Assuming you actually have any.” The judge, while still giving off a skeptical and generally displeased impression, also appears a little alarmed, a reaction Ayana seems to have a unique ability to instill in people.

Jennifer stands and submits their evidence, which consists mostly of references to Ayana’s character in the form of photos, heartwarming Facebook posts from her aunts on her birthday, and a letter from a former employer stating that she was always on time and almost never yelled at people who left gallons of milk out on the cosmetics shelves. 

The time it takes for the judge to come to a decision is the kind of minute that feels like thirty.

He clears his throat. “Due to a persistent argument and underwhelming but numerous pieces of evidence, the accused will be allowed a trial.”

You could hear a pin drop. Trinity sits there, a little bit in shock. She hadn’t realized how much she did not think this would work.

Ayana’s much less reserved in her surprise.

 

“Are you serious?!”

Trinity elbows her.

“I mean, yeah, that makes sense,” Ayana amends.

“Normally we’d set a date, but as the circumstances are highly unusual, your trial will be held in half an hour,” says the judge.

“Your Honor--”

“That’s final. It will be a trial of Ms. Santiago’s soul, conducted by the Saints. Please report to them immediately.”

With that, he leaves the room just as quickly as he came in. There’s no puff of smoke, but there might as well have been.

“The saints? What is that?” Ayana says once he’s gone.

Jennifer and Trinity look at each other nervously.

“What are you two doing? Don’t give each other that look!”

“The Saints? I didn’t even know they were real,” says Trinity.

Jennifer looks calm and collected as always. “They’re saints who got visions on Earth,” she tells Ayana. “They do work for us, prophecy telling, things involving foresight and perception.”

“Is that where they sent Jeremy?”

“Yes. This is good. It’s what we wanted. I didn’t know it would be so soon, but listen. They’re going to put you through the kind of test that you should’ve gotten during your judgment, but it’ll be different. I don’t know what exactly it is they do in there, but I know it won’t be like in the Garden.”

“Thank god.”

“In the river, you were passive. All you had to do was wait while your soul was weighed. This one will probably involve more action from you. And look, it didn’t work for Jeremy, but that doesn’t mean it won’t for you.”

“Okay?” says Ayana.

“You don’t sound very sure.”

“Funny.”

“Look,” Jennifer says hurriedly, “I’m going to drop you off with the Saints, and then I have to go. I really, really hope you win.”

“Because then you win.”

“Exactly.” 

“And what happens if she doesn’t?” Trinity says, imagining how much worse it’s going to get than Gina’s angry face.

“Then, that’s it. No more chances.” Jennifer gathers her things, the taste of dread and anticipation in the air.

 

\---

 

Trinity had always thought the Saints were something like an urban legend. Obviously saints in general are a thing; Sometimes humans are just so impossibly virtuous that there’s nothing to do but give them a special place in Heaven. Trinity has met a couple in her life. Brendan was insufferable, and Joan was. . . Intense. Human beings already have lots of messy emotions; saints just tend to have an even greater, unsupressable amount of them. It tires Trinity out watching them care so much.

But the Saints, capitalized, is different. The way the story goes, they’re the ones who had visions from God while they were on Earth, like prophets, and death didn’t take the power away. So now they help out, point out humans on Earth with a certain glow around them, the ones who will do great things, the ones who are fated to cause evil and chaos. It’s not really talked about very much; Trinity had always kind of assumed it was crap, and that the few coworkers she’d heard talking about them were just bragging, or telling stories. _Look at me, I met with the mystical vision tellers._

Apparently, she was wrong. 

Jennifer leads them through halls that are unfamiliar to Trinity. She’s never really been in this area, but it makes her wish she had been trained in law. When angels are born, they don’t really get a choice in the exact way they’ll serve God. There’s the guardians that look after people while they’re on Earth, the lawyers, the healers, the assistants, the researchers, plenty of other occupations in subcategories you’d never think of. And there’s guides like Trinity, who deal in death and deliverance, living in the in-between state that humans get to pass right through on their way from one real place to another. 

And once you’re given your job, that’s it. You can’t change career paths, like a forty-something financial advisor having a middle age crisis and deciding to pursue their true passion in theatre. The only way to get out, really, is up.

Or, well. Down. But that’s out of the question.

“I’ve been thinking,” says Ayana.

“Thanks for the warning,” says Trinity idly.

Ayana ignores her. “And I think I need more time.”

“You have fifteen minutes,” Jennifer says.

“I meant more like fifteen years.”

“You’re hilarious.”

“I know. But seriously.”

“Seriously,” Jennifer says, “This is your one shot. Don’t waste it. Good luck.”

After they turn the corner, Jennifer shakes each of their hands, professional as ever, as if this had been an actual business transaction and not a sketchy, kind-of-underhanded plan that definitely shouldn’t have worked.

She walks off and turns left, disappearing as if she had never been there at all, just a clean cut, perfectly-tailored figment of their imaginations, leaving Ayana and Trinity in front of a perfectly normal-looking doorway.

“So how much do you wanna bet there’s a shiny portal into another galaxy behind this door?” says Ayana.

“I don’t gamble.”

Ayana shrugs, and walks boldly inside. She’s gotten dangerously used to it here, Trinity thinks. The girl might be impulsive naturally, but Trinity remembers the hesitation she’d shown in the shock of her death. Resolutely avoiding thinking about how there’s a reason humans don’t get comfortable here, Trinity follows her in.

As it turns out, it’s not a portal to another galaxy. It’s blank, the size of someone’s living room, completely white on all sides and on the floor and ceiling, with no furniture. It looks like someone had taken an eraser and erased the whole room.

The blankness isn’t the first thing Trinity notices. That would be the “saints.” They sit in a circle, chanting in something that can’t be English or Spanish. There’s probably around ten of them. They’re all wearing robes.

Ayana stares in horror as they all turn their heads, perfectly in sync, toward her. Their eyes, like the room, are all white.

Slowly, they all motion toward her at once, silently telling her to come into the center of the circle.

“This was a mistake,” Ayana tells Trinity over her shoulder. “A very bad mistake. This is some crazy, messed up cult shit.”

“Get it together,” Trinity says unsympathetically, “They tell you go in the middle of the circle, you go in the middle of the circle. Do you know how much crazy messed up cult shit there is in Hell?”

“Do _you?_ ”

“--I'm sure it's a lot.”

Ayana goes into the middle of the circle. The saints’ heads follow her.

Trinity’s not sure what she was expecting them to look like. She’d kind of just imagined the regular kind, with halos around their heads and general martyr-y vibes, but they actually look kind of strung out, skin drained and bags under their eyes. They’re men and women, but the way they move is less human than the way angels do. They almost seem pinned in place. That, combined with the weird trance they’re all in and the rhythmic chanting are making this all pretty thriller-y.

The chanting gets louder. Trinity stands with her hands on her hips in the corner. Ayana stands in the circle looking deeply unsettled.

Trinity waits for something to happen, for Ayana's soul to rise up into a puff of smoke or something.

A minute passes. Then another. But nothing happens.

The only thing changing is the chanting, which is steadily increasing in volume until it becomes ear-splitting. She hears a thousand voices speak the same foreign syllables all at once.

“What’s going on?!” Ayana screams over the noise.

“What?” Trinity yells.

Ayana yells something Trinity can’t make out. Her ears are starting to really hurt.

“I can’t hear you!” shouts Trinity.

She’s not a lip reader, but if she had to guess what it was Ayana said back it would probably be something like “I can’t hear you.”

Trinity rolls her eyes, then comes closer and leans in.

 _“What?”_ she can barely hear Ayana say. How can they even be this loud? The noise is coming from all sides, like bass heavy speakers in a dance club.

Trying to hear her, Trinity steps just a _little_ closer-- not into the circle exactly, but her foot lands between two of the saints--

All at once, the chanting stops. It's completely silent for one fraction of a second. Trinity's ears ring.

Then everything plunges into darkness.

 

\---


	8. AYANA

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> //
> 
> Ayana walks over to the hats and puts one on, standing there defiantly with a bedazzled pink cowgirl hat on her head.
> 
> She’s possibly having a nervous breakdown.
> 
> //

\---

 

They appear in a gas station. The aisles are empty, and all the lights are on. Outside, there's a flickering red neon "OPEN 24 HOURS" sign. The number 4 is broken and dark, making it look like OPEN 2 HOURS.

Ayana groans. Her head is killing her and this place is depressingly familiar. "Well, this it. They've decided to skip the whole trial thing and just send me right to hell."

Looking around, Trinity nods. "The 2 for $3 mystery burritos are a nice touch. I've always heard it's fire, brimstone. Mice. But this takes vision."

Ayana sighs and walks over to the counter. "So, what is it now? Do I have to be the cashier at the convenience store of Hell for eternity? Refund devil-worshipping viejitas' expired milk? Get Satan his lotto numbers? I'm telling you right now we're not gonna have 666 available. Triple numbers are _always_ sold out."

"Satan doesn't play the lottery. He just created it. This is where you worked, isn't it? The exact store?"

"Yeah, the exact one," Ayana grumbles. "Hey, if this is Hell, do you think I could put in requests for _type_ of torment? Cause I'd rather have the fire and brimstone. And mice. Which this place has too, by the way, don't be fooled by our sparkling B health rating."

“The real question is, what am I doing here?” says Trinity. “This is _your_ mystic soul trial or whatever.”

“I don’t know. Moral support?”

“I have responsibilities more important than ‘moral support.’”

“Yeah, you’re _so_ responsible,” says Ayana sarcastically, “You let me get wasted on weird angel liquor.”

"It was just _regular_ \-- Look. There's something in here that you need to find. Something that can help you get where you need to go."

"How cryptic and unhelpful. Glad to see you're still feeling like yourself after everything."

". . .I should've left you in that river."

Ayana looks at her reproachfully. 

Trinity rolls her eyes. "Go! Look around! Maybe it's behind those I Heart NY T-shirts. Or. . . Are those cowboy hats?"

"Yeah. Yes. It's a 7-eleven in the Bronx, but yeah, those are cowboy hats for some reason. Hey, let's put them on! What's that thing about humiliation and godliness? Look, do you want the one with pink rhinestones or the one that lights up?"

"None of the above," Trinity says, looking a little horrified.

Ayana walks over to the hats and puts one on, standing there defiantly with a bedazzled pink cowgirl hat on her head.

She’s possibly having a nervous breakdown.

She shrugs off the godforsaken blazer Trinity made her wear and tosses it over her shoulder, where it lands somewhere between the freezer full of microwavable chimichangas and the over-the-counter medication shelves. “At least I don’t have to wear that thing anymore.”

“Let’s think about this,” Trinity says reasonably. “What does this place mean to you?”

“Before any of this happened, I would’ve literally said it was hell.”

“And yet, you kept coming for a reason. You needed the money. It was a necessary hell.”

“I guess. So what?”

“Well, what does that say about you? How did it affect you?”

“I don’t know!” snaps Ayana, feeling increasingly frustrated. “I have no idea. That I’m a dropout? That my life sucks? What does it matter? Doesn’t an entire trial based around what one person is like, all on their own, seem kind of self-absorbed and insane anyway?”

“I don’t make the rules,” says Trinity. “I shouldn’t even be here probably. You want to avoid actual, _literal_ Hell, right? With the scary demons and pits of fire? You’re going to have to work this out.”

Ayana feels like sobbing, like punching a wall. She feels like moping. It’s not fair, she thinks as she stalks over to the wall of chips. None of this is fair.

“I guess I wasn’t always my _best_ self here,” Ayana offers after a brief silence, as she miserably opens a bag of Doritos.

“Okay,” Trinity says encouragingly. “And?”

Ayana shoves five chips into her mouth gloomily. “Sometimes I’d go to sleep in the back instead of stocking shelves. Customers complained a lot about my attitude. They’d say I was 'disrespectful.'”

“Why do you think they felt that way?”

“Uh, because of my resting bitch face? What is this, therapy?”

Trinity shrugs, picking up a Kit Kat from under the counter and finishing it alarmingly quickly.

“I’m just saying, if that’s the first thing that jumps into your head, it might be important--”

She’s interrupted by an old lady with white hair and a walker, who, seemingly from nowhere, silently walks up between them and places her stuff, a box of crackers and a bottle of seltzer, on the counter. The lady then stands their expectantly.

“You’ve gotta be fucking kidding me,” Ayana says flatly.

The lady looks at her admonishingly, most likely for the swearing.

At a loss, Ayana walks behind the counter and rings the lady up. Ayana puts her stuff in a plastic bag and looks on disbelievingly as the lady pulls out a tiny coin purse and proceeds to count out 97 cents in change from it. Ayana takes that and the lady’s three crumpled up dollar bills and throws it into the register, looking wildly between her and Trinity as the lady slowly puts away her coin purse, ties her grocery bag to the handle of her walker, and quietly leaves the store.

They stand in silence as the automatic doors whir open and closed.

“What?” Ayana says to nobody in particular. “Was that it? I wasn’t mean to that lady so now my soul is cleansed?” 

Trinity coughs. “I don’t really think--”

She’s interrupted again when somebody else walks up to the counter, this time a large man with a thick beard, a long braid down his back and arms covered in tattoos. He sets down a basket in front of Ayana.

“When were you even in the store?” Ayana says, bewildered. The bearded man and Trinity shrug at the same time.

“Seriously,” says Ayana, “Did _you_ see him? Or hear anything?”

“Look,” the guy says, “Can I pay for my shit or not?”

Ayana rolls her eyes and rings up a frightening amount of tortilla chips.

“And a pack of Marlboros,” he says as he slaps two twenties onto the counter. Stunned, Ayana reaches behind her and grabs them off of the wall.

“Thanks,” he grunts when she hands him his change. He puts a cigarette between his teeth and lights it as he walks out.

“What the actual fuck?” says Ayana.

Trinity doesn’t seem to have any answers.

“I-- can’t believe this is happening. Do you know what I thought when you told me I was dead? I thought, At least I don’t have to go to work tomorrow.”

“I’m sure it’s temporary,” says Trinity, not sounding especially sure.

“Right-- Oh, come _on._ ”

A harassed looking young woman with two small children, one of them a screaming toddler, walks up with a cart full of stuff, a sizable portion of which is frozen foods.

“This is a gas station!” exclaims Ayana. “We don’t even _have_ carts here!”

The woman says nothing in response, just unloads several frozen spaghetti dinners onto the counter.

“It’s not that big a store! Where even are all these people coming from?” says Ayana, feeling unhinged. “Hey, wanna help me out or something?” she says to Trinity as the pile on the counter continues to grow.

Looking highly apprehensive, Trinity walks over and starts bagging. Ayana’s not sure why, but it makes her feel a little better.

“Misery loves company,” she hears Trinity mutter.

“What was that?”

Trinity points to a 20 lb bag of rice that Ayana’s fairly sure 7-eleven does not actually carry. “I said, this rung up as 10.99 but the sticker on it says 11.99.”

Ayana raises her eyebrows. 

“ _Yvonne!_ ” she shouts toward the back. There’s no reply. 

“Apparently in my virtual-reality place of work my manager’s not around, so I think it’ll be fine.”

One of the woman’s children runs over and bumps into a large bag of flour, knocking it off the counter. It falls at their feet, exploding into the air and covering Ayana and Trinity both in a layer of white powder.

“Debit or credit,” says Ayana flatly.

The woman pays as she readjusts the other wailing kid slung over her shoulder. 

Directly behind her is another lady, this one with a can of chunk light tuna in her hand and a troubled expression on her face.

“Excuse me,” says the lady, holding the tuna up unnecessarily close to Ayana’s face. “I’m looking for the kind in water, but you only have the kind in oil.”

“I’m sorry, but whatever’s on the shelf is all we have,” says Ayana automatically and lifelessly.

“Well,” says the woman with the air of someone who feels extremely put upon, “Could you check in the back?”

Ayana’s pretty sure she strains something in the effort of not rolling her eyes. “We don’t keep any canned foods in the back, miss. It’s just whatever’s on the shelf.” 

“Well, is there anyone you can ask? I’ve been coming here for years and you always have the kind in water.”

Ayana cannot believe this is happening. This is Hell, lady, she could say. You take the tuna you get and you don't get upset.

“Miss, I don’t know what else to tell you. We just _do not_ have any tuna in water. There’s really nothing I can do.”

The lady huffs and continues to stand there.

“Looks like a line’s forming,” Trinity points out unhelpfully.

Ayana wonders briefly what it would have been like to die the way you’re supposed to, to just slip into a peaceful, unconscious oblivion.

She thinks it would've been nice. 

 

\---

 

A half hour later, the place is packed. Who knows why. Maybe she was right, and they really did just decide to let her suffer in Hell, and Ayana’s angelic guide just happened be in the wrong time in the wrong place and get caught in the crossfire. Maybe by “testing her soul”, they really meant testing her patience. Whatever it is, it’s resulted in a line longer than any Ayana had ever had to handle in real life. It winds through most of the aisles and stretches out the door.

It’s loud and chaotic. Ayana _hates_ it. Is she doing penance? She doesn’t know.

What she does know is that she’s the only one at the register other than Trinity, who’s currently criticizing Ayana’s scanning techniques over her shoulder.

“You know what?” Ayana says, as she watches someone walk past her with a six pack of Corona they didn’t pay for, the fourth person to blatantly shoplift right in front of her since they flashed in here. “I’m done with this. There has to be something else.”

She walks out from behind the counter, leaving an unfazed Trinity to handle the crowd herself. 

This can’t be all there is. She’s always felt stuck, right? Maybe this is about her needing to figure a way out, taking initiative, changing her life or something. Maybe if she just walks away, she thinks as she pushes her way past the line of people and out the door…

She’ll end up right back here. Ayana looks around her in confusion. She’s in the store again, this time right outside the bathroom. She turns around, walks into the bathroom-- and comes in through the front entrance, bumping into an unfriendly looking man waiting on line with four bags of ice. 

“No,” Ayana says.

“Looks like you can’t leave,” Trinity observes. “Hey, how much do we charge for this lipstick?”

“We don’t _sell--_ ” Ayana begins. “Just charge her $2.99.”

She walks out of the store eleven more times, only to end up back where she started.

“I really think you’re only tiring yourself out,” calls Trinity, who’s currently elbow deep in scratch-offs being purchased by an elderly man who’s not afraid to voice his objections when Trinity starts to pull down the gold _$5 MONEY MAYHEM_ instead of the purple _$5 MAYHEM MADNESS._

Defeated and demoralized, Ayana goes back behind the counter to the second register next to Trinity’s.

“ _Next,_ ” she says monotonously.

And so it begins.

Over the next God knows how long, Ayana and Trinity take care of what must be thousands of customers, most of whom have terrible attitudes and/or grandiose visions of how important it is that they not be overcharged for energy drinks.

It’s not what she thought she’d be doing, and watching an angel sell condoms is definitely its own special kind of disconcerting, but if they’re gonna do this, they’re gonna do it the right way. Miserably, while looking forward to not having to do it anymore the whole time. 

Maybe it should be more shocking, being trapped in a never-ending loop so she can never get out of here. But it’s sort of like a metaphor for life if you think about it, being trapped and everything. That, or she’s just getting used to crazy supernatural situations.

So, without thinking too much about how she’s not even getting paid, except maybe in soul maintenance and purification, which is an extremely unreliable currency, Ayana works. There’s some trouble in certain places, like when Ayana has to show Trinity how to use the lotto machine, or when people ask what time they close and neither Ayana nor Trinity think that “As soon as I prove my soul worthy of Jesus” is an acceptable answer, but in general, things run smoothly. Well. Smooth-ish.

In one instance, Ayana helps four consecutive people who are unsure of how to swipe their credit cards, while next to her Trinity takes care of a group of teenagers trying to buy beer. After several failed attempts, they settle for slurpees. They all laugh loudly about something as they leave the store with their extra large cups, Blue Raspberry and Wild Cherry dripping onto their fingers and wrists and getting them sticky.

_“Déjame ver la lengua!”_

_“Aaaah,” Ayana says with her mouth wide open._

_Ashley laughs and shows Ayana hers, which is bright blue._

_“I would totally get a tattoo on my tongue,” Ayana says thoughtfully._

_“No you wouldn’t,” says Ashley. The streetlights throw a bright orange glow over her face and into the polluted black sky._

_“Yeah, you’re right. I’d get one on my shoulder, though.”_

_“Yeah? Of what?”_

_“Uh…”_

_“Bitch can’t even think of anything.”_

_Ayana shoves her and Ashley laughs harder, stumbling a little on the sidewalk. They’re both tipsy._

_“I want Faith, right on my chest, maybe with like a cross for my aunt,” declares Ashley, pointing to the skin on her chest over her heart._

_“OOOH, I would get the same. But on the other side and without the cross. And instead of Faith, I want it to say Kim’s name.”_

_Ashley’s eyes get big and she shoves Ayana back in excitement, then puts her arm around Ayana’s shoulder. Ayana’s heart beats a little faster. She tells it to stop._

_“Oh my god. We should get them, like, right now,” Ashley tells her, eyes wide._

_“Shit. You’re right.”_

_“Girl. We’re doing this. I know a guy who’ll give us a discount.” Ashley pulls out her phone with her right arm. Ayana feels drops from Ashley’s slurpee fall onto her shoulder where Ashley’s other arm rests. It’s cold against the thin layer of sweat covering Ayana’s skin from the humid summer night._

_Suddenly, this seems like the best idea they’ve ever had. Right now, with a bright blue tongue and Ashley’s arm still slung over her, a tiny bit drunk and remembering her sister, Ayana feels something inside of her buzzing. It’s almost like-- she feels happy. Like everything normally weighing her down, might not be all there is. She feels light, and filled up at the same time._

“--HEY! Hello?”

Ayana looks up, realizing she’s been staring off into space for who knows how long, while a vexed looking woman waves her change in Ayana’s face. Ayana takes the change and prints out a receipt distractedly.

“Eight dollars?” says the woman loudly. “The sign said six.”

“Oh.” Still out of it, Ayana hands her two dollars from the cash register.

“I swear, this shit is getting ridiculous,” the woman says, taking the refund and her bag angrily.

“You’re the one buying gas station wine,” Ayana points out. It’s possibly not the most diplomatic thing she could’ve said.

The woman storms out. Ayana looks down at the left side of her chest under her collarbone, where _Kimberly_ is tattooed on her skin in loopy, slightly faded lettering.

Shaking off whatever just happened, Ayana takes the next customer.

 

\---

 

It’s not clear how much time passes. It certainly _feels_ like forever, but that’s how it tends to be here. It could’ve been twenty-four hours, or it could have been three. Either way, Trinity looks as exhausted as Ayana feels, and the line is just barely starting to taper off.

“Have a good one,” Ayana says politely to a girl she’s just sold ten back-to-back issues of Vogue. She’s pretty sure the store doesn’t actually keep magazine issues from ten months back, but it’s not the craziest thing she’s seen today. Highlights included a pool table, a pair of thigh-high stiletto leather boots, and a lawn mower. Trinity’s angel friends might have lots of files on humans, but they have some pretty interesting ideas of what gas stations sell.

“Ah, the mystery burritos,” says Trinity as she finishes with the last two people in the store, who are buying six of them. “I admire your courage.”

“So is that it?” she says as the couple walks out, leaving them in a once again empty store. The shelves are almost completely cleaned out.

“Don’t say that!” says Ayana as she takes the last Slim Jim hanging next to the register. “Say that and you’ll jinx it.”

“Jeez, sorry.”

“My whole body hurts,” Ayana complains, sinking down onto the floor.

Trinity remains standing, arms folded stoically.

“Strange we didn’t get any creepy looking guys buying duct tape, rope and zip ties in bulk,” says Ayana, chewing reflectively. “We usually get at least one of those a day.”

“Do you sell it to them?” Trinity says, sounding concerned.

“I usually just say the prices have been marked up double what they say on the sticker.”

“. . . Does that work?”

“Almost always.”

“So,” says Trinity, “Not that doing your mindless, soul crushing job wasn’t a fun break from doing my own, but shouldn’t something happen now?”

Ayana shrugs, standing up and feeling her back ache. She walks over to the freezer and gets out a can of Pepsi, which fizzes when she pops the tab open. “I don’t know, but that was way worse than it ever gets during regular rush hour. The line literally went down the sidewalk and around the corner!”

It’s Trinity’s turn to shrug. “The Higher Powers can be dramatic sometimes.”

“Higher Powers is what you guys call yourselves?”

“It’s what we’re called.”

“What, no Incorporated at the end?”

Trinity smiles bitterly.

“Anyway,” says Ayana, “My favorite part of all that was definitely when that guy asked for your number and you just backed up slowly and said ‘I’m not really here.’”

“Hmm.” says Trinity. “What about when we ran out of change and you started telling them they could probably live without the two quarters so stop whining.”

“It was also great when I had to stop you from selling cigarettes to a twelve year old.”

“I think that one was meant for you. And, who cares. It’s not like any of those people were really real.”

“Hey, we did it though!” says Ayana, feeling uncharacteristically optimistic.

Trinity looks doubtful.

“We did,” says Ayana. “And I wasn’t rude to anybody. Not even one person! That’s gotta be worth something.”

“Maybe,” Trinity says tentatively. “Something just seems. . . Off.”

Ayana thinks this over as she drinks her Pepsi. Trinity got herself one too, but hers is diet, which is predictably disgusting.

“I guess,” Ayana says after a while. “I mean, everything about all of this seems off, doesn’t it?”

“AYANA,” says a booming voice from all around them.

Ayana and Trinity look up, startled.

“YOU HAVE COMPLETED THE FIRST TRIAL. YOUR SECOND ONE BEGINS NOW.”

Ayana has approximately one second to process that before everything flashes a blinding white.

 

\---

 

These holy teleportations are really making Ayana wish she had taken a bottle of ibuprofen while she had a chance. Her head throbs and she has to take a minute before opening her eyes.

When she does, she’s in a church. She smells holy water, which isn’t supposed to have a smell, even though Ayana’s always been sure it does. The air is cool and dark, and smells like incense and polished wood. The ceiling, high up in the sky in the front of the building, swoops down and hangs low toward the back. Rows of red prayer candles flicker in every corner, throwing light and shadows over the walls, outlining the bronze statues’ somber  
faces in a dancing red glow.

Somehow, it makes them look even holier.

They must’ve been going for that when they built the place. Catholics are so good at all that dramatic crap, it just comes natural to them.

Ayana turns to voice this thought to Trinity, except that Trinity’s not there.

Ayana looks all around her. The angel is gone.

“Trinity?” Ayana calls out haltingly. “Hello? Um. . . Where you at?”

Silence.

Well. That’s it then. She’s finally on her own. Like the gas station had been in the beginning, the church is completely empty. She can do this, she thinks shakily. It’ll be fine.

She wonders what it’ll be this time. Does she have to sit through a five hour mass? Be an acolyte with a couple of twelve-year-olds? Smile politely through long conversations with several of her mom’s friends telling her how big she’s gotten?

She’s not sure what to do. First she sits down on one of the long empty wooden benches. Then, restlessly, she paces over to the rows of candles in the corner. She presses a button under a candle in a row of unlit ones. It lights up instantly, glowing bright red in the middle. Ayana puts her hand against the glass and feels it heat up, watches the warm light spill onto her fingers.

You’re supposed to pray for something. 

_I thought praying was free._

_It is._

_So why do you have to put a quarter in the box before you can light a candle?_

_It’s just a donation, weirdo. You don’t technically HAVE to._

_Can I do it?_

_Yeah, here. Do both of ours. Just drop them in like that._

_It didn’t make a sound._

_So? Come on, light your candle. Choose one of the dark ones._

_It’s not working._

_You have to push the button harder than that. It might make your fingers hurt._

Ayana never knew what to pray for anyway. She always just wanted to watch the candle light up, drop the quarter in the black box. She never thought very far past that part.

She feels a hot tear roll from the corner of her eyes down her cheek. Not sure why she’s crying or what she’s doing, she kneels in front of the statues of Mary and Jesus on either side of the candles. Their sad metal faces flicker.

She could pray for the obvious; not to go to Hell. She’s sure countless others have prayed for that before, including herself, when she was a child. But she doesn’t do that anymore. She grew up, got over it, and she doesn’t believe begging will help her now. 

Just like she did all those times in real life as a kid, Ayana closes her eyes and prays for nothing. She sits in the dark and thinks about what all these saints and spirits and Mary and Jesus would think about her, if they could see her. She tries to remember the Hail Mary and stumbles through it haltingly.

Pray for us sinners, now and in the hour of our death. And even after that, apparently.

A hand touches her shoulder. Ayana turns, half expecting it to be Trinity.

It’s not.

The face that looks down at her is shockingly familiar and completely strange all at once.

“No,” Ayana breathes.

“What? No hug, nothing? All that babysitting and see what it gets you.”

“You’re dead. You’re not real.”

“Duh. None of this is.”

Ayana had almost forgotten how pretty Kim was. Tight blonde-dyed curls frame her dark, heart shaped face and huge black eyes. She would look sort of delicate, but her dark roots, the acne scars on her cheeks, and her hard jaw make her look both tough and beautiful. She stands there casually, hands in her pockets, leaning all her weight on her right foot, just like she always did in real life. Everything about her is exactly like real life.

Tears stream down Ayana’s face now. She doesn’t feel like she’s crying.

“What are you doing here?”

“Hanging out with Jesus. What do you think? I’m here for you.”

“I miss you,” Ayana whispers.

Kim runs her hands through Ayana’s hair and starts to braid it loosely. Ayana feels like she’s six years old, sitting on the floor eating concerningly colorful cereal in a plastic bowl full of disgusting looking milk while Kim does her hair before school and tells her not to move so much.

“I know. I miss you too.”

Ayana leans against her, not really caring that this is all her imagination, or some trick from the minds of a bunch of dead people in robes. “Did you go to Heaven?”

“I did.”

“What is it like?”

“I’m sure you’ll find out yourself.”

Ayana feels herself kind of stretch thinner and fade, go transparent like a cloud. Things go fuzzy as she closes her eyes. Maybe she doesn’t have to do anything. She could just stay in this trial with her sister for a while. She hasn’t seen her in so long. . . 

Her last thought before she goes unconscious is that Kim smells like she always had, like soap and lotion and other beauty products Ayana knew she would steal from her later.

 

\---

**Author's Note:**

> Thanks for reading!!!


End file.
